MEXICO — Members of the Recreation Board are urging their fellow residents to approve the Recreation Department budget when it goes to a vote later this summer.

“Our taxes are going to go up with or without this budget,” Mabel Merrill, chairwoman of the Recreation Department, said in an interview. “It’s the school, it’s the roads that we have, it’s the price of oil, it’s everything else that’s gone up that the town has to have.”

The recreation budget became a controversial subject after voters rejected the $144,101 proposed budget June 12. That proposal — 54 percent higher than the current year’s budget — shot up because of building repairs, rising fuel costs and a near-tripling of Recreation Director Wayne Sevigny’s salary to $30,000.

After a July 10 budget workshop with the Board of Selectmen and Budget Committee, the proposed recreation budget was lowered to $114,842 – a 22 percent increase over the current year’s budget. To Merrill and other members of the Recreation Board, the proposed 22 percent increase is well worth the price.

A key element of that price is Sevigny’s salary increase. In his first year on the job, Sevigny has secured grants, built new dugouts and brought in more than $10,000 in revenue through new basketball, soccer and Little League programs, Merrill said. Increasing Sevigny’s salary to $30,000 will allow him to be compensated fairly for the work he does, Merrill said.

“If he could bring money in, the agreement was that we would try and get him on full time,” referring to the decision to hire Sevigny on a part-time basis last fall. “Because right now he’s got his hands into so many different projects for us that he’s putting in anywhere from 30 to 60 hours easy a week.”

Tammy Schmersal, a fellow member of the Recreation Board, said she’s been amazed at what Sevigny has done with the Recreation Department.

“This is the first year that I have seen a change in the Rec Department in a long time,” Schmersal said.

To others, Sevigny’s salary hike – and the overall rec budget increase – aren’t worth the cost. At the July 10 budget workshop, several Budget Committee members questioned the role of the Recreation Department and proposed a $93,585 budget — equal to the department’s current budget.

Merrill, who also sits on the Budget Committee and voted against the $93,585 number, said that budgeting approach is shortsighted. New programs and new equipment will only add value to the community, Merrill said.

“We’re just offering programs that other people have come to us and said ‘I wish you could do this for us,’” Merrill said. By not investing in recreation, the tax burden on current residents will only increase, Merrill said. 

“Right now you hear a lot of complaints about the elderly people having to pay all these taxes,” Merrill said. “But if they don’t start doing something that’s going to help the younger generation, to give them a reason, goals for when they start having kids, then they’re going to be the only ones here, the elderly people.”

Voters will decide the merits of the recreation budget increase later this summer. At their July 24 meeting, selectmen likely will schedule a public hearing on the proposed budget, which will be followed by a town meeting secret ballot.

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