County budget requests facing unusual scrutiny
By Gail Geraghty
Staff Writer

PARIS – It took three hours Thursday to shave $1,000 off next year’s budget to run Oxford County government.

The nine-member Oxford County Budget Committee, comprised of selectmen from towns in the county, are questioning requests in the $4.5 million county budget with a level of scrutiny not seen in many years.

So detailed was their examination Thursday that they did not have time to talk about the two costliest areas in county spending: the jail and the sheriff’s department. The committee will reconvene at 5 p.m. Tuesday to review those two departments, which account for $1.87 million of the budget.

Part of the reason for the extra scrutiny may be because the amount to be raised by taxes – $3.48 million – would represent a 12.6 percent increase, the largest seen in 12 years. Another reason may lie in the animosity that developed last year between committee members and department heads when several areas of county spending were slashed.

Rumford Selectman Eugene Boivin focused repeatedly Thursday on what he saw as higher-than-average raises for county employees. He said the 3 percent cost of living increase being given to county employees actually amounted to more like 5 to 8 percent or higher, when step increases and a 53rd week of pay were factored in.

By statute, however, it is county commissioners, not the Budget Committee, who set wages, said Administrative Assistant Carole Mahoney on Friday.

Boivin was also concerned that the county will eventually have to pick up the tab for the hazardous-materials suits, radios and other emergency equipment being purchased with a federal Homeland Security grant.

“I still look at federal money as coming out of Gene Boivin’s pocket,” Boivin said.

Dr. Monique Aniel, a Mexico selectman, asked how much of a surplus the county carried over from the previous year. She was told the county’s balance was $559,311. In December, $200,000 of that will be transferred to the capital reserve account. Another $150,000 will be used to reduce the tax commitment, leaving a balance of $209,348.

The committee spent considerable time talking about the commissioners’ benefit plan and salaries.

When wages and medical benefits are added together, the compensation for the chairman of commissioners is $22,525, and $14,102 for the other two commissioners, pointed out Committee Chairman Bruce Hanson.

Emergency Management Agency Director Dan Schorr successfully defended the need for $23,000 extra in the dispatch account to increase the hours for four full-time dispatchers. The increased hours will allow the county’s Regional Communications Center to have three dispatchers on duty from 6 a.m. to midnight Sunday through Thursday.

Register of Probate Tom Winsor, however, didn’t fare as well in his request, supported by Probate Judge Dana Hanley, for a 10 percent raise in pay. Boivin, in fact, argued for a lesser amount than the commissioners settled on, which is the same pay as Register of Deeds-East Jane Rich receives.

Boivin’s motion failed, however, and the committee agreed on a salary of $26,926.

ggeraghty@sunjournal.com

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