
Well folks, another budget is finalized and completed for the next fiscal year. This was my 4Th budget series and it tied in with the hiring of our next town administrator- More on that subject a little later.
At this final budget hearing, councilors could bring up anything, any line item they wanted to discuss. All the work we have done previously brought the tax increase up to adding an additional .20 Cents which was .03 cents UNDER the maximum allowed under the tax cap of .23 cents. Lets recap. Town side tax rate is $7.50 and this year the council could add up to a total of $7.73 MAX.
Councilor Fairbanks started by asking the fire dept to cut $50,000 from anywhere in the budget the chief wanted with the stipulation that it could not effect services, however she did not offer any specifics. Why she singled out the fire dept and why she choose $50K is unknown and no explanation was offered.
"watch me pull a rabbit out of the hat"
"but that trick never works"
"this time for sure".......
In a 4-3 vote it passed with Fairbanks Coyle Carney Metts voting to make the cut.
Then Janet wanted to replace capital reserve fund money with the money being raised via taxation for a new ( future ) recreation building with 55k earmarked for senior center. The full number $100k was not to be raised by taxation in this years budget
Vote was 6-1 with Bulkley the only no vote.
That was basically it for determining budget coming in at adding 16 cents to the tax rate instead of 20. A savings of .04 cents per 1000.
Final Vote on overall budget 5-2 Budget Approved with Chirichiello and Carney voting NO.
Carney's reasoning- I don't know and haven't had a chance to ask he's reasoning
For me- We didn't cut enough. I think we could of cut an additional 145K and in fact I offered by motion to cut this money but didn't get the votes in an earlier workshop.
I think we should of cut $80K Manning St and $45K sidewalks near upper room.
And at that the time i brought up these cuts I said we needed to make sure we had money for additional vet credits and look at elderly exemptions. I was told there would be plenty of time for that. Didn't happen. This is why I voted NO. My first time doing so.
Next we voted 5-2 to bring in Gary Stenhouse as our next administrator.
Coyle and Fairbanks voting NO. They liked none of the people we interviewed and wanted to keep looking. Interesting...
I will admit that Gary was not my first choice, but i found myself trying to separate whether i personally could click with the next administrator or not and I had to focus on what was best for the town and not whether i had the warm and fuzzies over any candidate. Gary has great experience and a wealth of knowledge. he has worked running Rochester and they had about 30K people. I will let his professionalism and experience speak for themselves.
I'm hoping on welcoming Gary to Derry and look forward to working with him on making Derry a great place to be.
What are your thoughts on the Budget process???