JAY – Selectmen and Budget Committee members cut a proposed budget of almost $6 million to about $5.84 million to come within a state-imposed tax cap. Selectmen needed to cut $152,000 from the budget and had cut $168,654 by 9:15 p.m. Tuesday to come within a 4.83 percent increase allowed by state law.
Once the budget proposal is completed, it will go to referendum vote Monday, April 24, at the Community Building.
Removed from the budget was $100,000 that was to go toward public access to Parker Pond. Selectmen said they are still pursuing their options but did not want to take people’s property from them.
Selectmen also cut a proposed $100,000 to $50,000 to be added to the building reserve for a new town office and police station. There is $642,000 in that account.
Selectmen also reduced a $10,000 donation request for a pulp and paper museum to $5,000 and cut $13,654 from other donation requests. They left the food cupboard, Big Brothers Big Sisters and Spruce Mountain insurance requests intact.
Selectmen voted 3-0 to fund the Fire Rescue Department at $252,772, rejecting an alternate proposal of $267,937 for a full-time fire chief. Budget Committee members also voted for the $252,772, but did it in a 6-4 vote, with April Hartford, Marla Wright, William Wright and Pam Newton opposed.
Selectmen and some Budget Committee members said that a full-time fire chief should be looked at next year.
“I really would like to see a full-time chief, but this is not the year,” Town Manager Ruth Marden said Monday. “We are the only mill town (except Madison) without a full-time chief.”
Marden said she is supposed to be the emergency management director, but that the fire chief should have that responsibility. Right now, with the fire chief, his officers and firefighters having full-time jobs, it makes it difficult for them to take on more responsibilities.
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