LIVERMORE FALLS – A special town meeting vote last week decreasing the transfer station budget may cut the station’s hours nearly in half, Town Manager Martin Puckett said Monday.
Last Monday’s meeting was meant to resolve the budgetary woes the town faced after the annual town meeting in mid-June, when voters denied funding to town departments in a dispute with selectmen. Selectmen had wanted to close the transfer station and emergency dispatch and farm those services out to Androscoggin County and Jay to save money.
Instead of accepting selectmen’s request, residents rejected seven articles in the town budget.
Residents at the July 10 meeting voted to keep the transfer station, but approved more than $31,000 less than was requested by the department to run it. In discussion before the vote, some residents said they thought some items – namely wages for a half-time position and the insurance costs associated with it – had already been raised in the highway budget.
Former selectman Clayton Putnam made a motion to amend the original request by subtracting building improvements and insurance costs and wages.
But Town Manager Martin Puckett discovered last week that because Putnam’s motion did not specify exactly where the extra wages and insurance money would come from and how it would be applied, the town is stuck.
Because voters approved the wages and insurance costs Putnam alluded to in the highway budget, Puckett said it’s illegal to move the funds around without voter approval.
Selectmen discussed the possibility of keeping the station open only three days per week, instead of five, and employing Nadeau part-time there and part time in the highway department. Selectmen ultimately asked Puckett to investigate the town’s options and get back to them at the next meeting.
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