SUMNER – Selectmen and the town clerk will ask voters for higher salaries at the annual town meeting at 7 p.m. Aug. 8 at the Hartford-Sumner Elementary School.
Selectmen have received a stipend of $2,200 a year for the last two years. This year, they’re asking for $3,000.
At a June 14 meeting with the Budget Committee, selectmen cited the amount of work they do that would otherwise be contracted out. The Budget Committee thought $800 per selectmen was too large a raise, and is recommending $2,400 a year.
A salary of $33,000 for the town clerk reflects a change in the job from part-time to full-time. The total requested budget for salaries is $73,957, a $16,000 increase from last year.
Selectmen and the Budget Committee will recommend that voters appropriate $61,742 for solid waste operations. Included in this figure is about $10,000 to cover Sumner’s portion of a project proposed by Buckfield Town Manager Glen Holmes.
In May, Holmes, who also serves as manager of the Buckfield-Sumner Solid Waste Transfer Station, asked selectmen from the two towns to approve a project that would have provided running water and bathroom facilities at the transfer station.
Sumner selectmen have not approved the project and are working with Buckfield to form another plan. If $61,742 is approved by voters, the amount which would have gone toward the water project will remain unused.
An article asking for $18,000 toward the purchase of a backhoe has been removed from the warrant. Selectmen didn’t think they could justify the expense now.
Voters will be asked to elect three officers by written ballot. Selectman Clifford McNeil is running unopposed for a third term. Road Commissioner James Keach is also running unopposed.
No one has taken out papers to fill a seat on the SAD 39 board of directors that was left vacant when Marty Elkin finished her term this year. Anyone interested in the position may announce that at the town meeting.
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