MINOT – Citizens rejected four out of 87 warrant articles during this year’s town meeting and approved about $4.7 million in total spending for town and school needs.
About $2.8 million of that money would be raised by local property taxes. The final impact to a property owner won’t be known until later this year when selectmen set the new tax rate according to this year’s spending approvals and updated property assessments.
Townspeople trimmed about $99,000 from spending requests that were requested at Saturday’s town meeting while generally giving town and school officials what they asked for. Voters only pared education spending requests by $35,000 and town spending requests by $38,000.
However, citizens complained about the inadequate and confusing information in this year’s town report. It took about eight hours Saturday for citizens to sift through spending requests. Townspeople endured several amendments and amendments to amendments. On several articles, a show of hands too close to count required the use of paper ballots.
Complaints arose about the lack of detailed budget proposals, poorly worded articles and the elimination of teachers’ salaries from the public record. George Buker called the 2005 annual report one of the worst that he had ever seen.
“One of the worst things in the world to happen to town government is to confuse the people so that they don’t know what they’re voting on,” said Buker. “Taxes in the town of Minot aren’t that high, and that’s because we sit here and decide what we want.”
The total education budget includes the town’s K-8 school, tuition to Poland Regional High School, adult education and the School Union 29 administration. Voters agreed to fund about $1.4 million for education with local property taxes.
They gave school officials authority to spend a total of about $3.2 million, with funds also coming from other sources. State aid to the school increased by about $62,000 this year. However, the school is starting out with about $185,000 less in its cash balance than it did last year.
The school budget reduces the K-8 staff by one teacher, which will leave an average class size of 18 students, said Minot Consolidated School Principal Margaret Pitts on Saturday. Citizens approved buying a new school bus and spending more on the K-8 school library
On town issues, citizens accepted Arthur’s Way and Highland Drive as town roads. Lisa Sabatine-Bridgham pointed out that the town had no choice but to accept them after forcing town specifications upon private landowners and developers. She urged town officials to change their rules for road requirements.
Part of the road requirement changes came in an ordinance revision approved by voters Saturday. That revised ordinance calls for wider cul-de-sacs and eliminating non-circular turn-around areas on dead-end streets.
Minot citizens gave town officials the green light to spend about $1.5 million, with about $1.4 million coming from local taxes.
New town expenditures approved Saturday included buying a $29,500 skid steer loader, a $26,500 used plow truck, and $7,500 in matching funds for a new recreational trail system.
Comments are no longer available on this story