Advisory Board starts budget
By Caitlyn Kelleher JOURNAL REPORTER

The Ashburnham Advisory Board met on Monday, March 10, and began reviewing and meeting with many of the town's departments.

The Board brought in the town's treasurer, the tax collector and the Board of Assessors to review the budget requests and the potential revenue for the town. The town departments were asked to cut 3 percent of their budgets based on the project income from the state and lower expectation of tax revenue.

Resident Debbie Bickford expressed her concerns about any budget increases with the decreasing real estate market and the increasing number of residents with financial issues that may prevent them from paying their taxes.

"What if everyone goes for an abatement?" Bickford asked.

Abatements can be requested when a resident thinks the valuation of their home is too much. Assessor Richard Coswell could not provide a solid answer for that.

Coswell said the town would start to see the effects of the declining market in their assessments in a year or two. He said there are not enough "arm-length" sales at the moment, which is what is required for assessment purposes.

Selectman Christopher Gagnon asked why other towns were already seeing the decreases, to which Coswell said he was not sure.

Interim Town Administrator Paul Boushell said there is a spending freeze in place for town departments now and a limited freeze has been in place since July. He does not expect to have that be any different next year.

Advisory Board members asked Boushell what he would add to the budget if the proposed increases in local aid came from the state Sentate. Boushell said it would be up to the Selectmen to tell him the priorities.

"We shouldn't be buying one piece of equipment until we've hired those people," said Selectman Mark Carlisle, referring to an additional police officer and an additional firefighter.

Gagnon said he was concerned about spending any non-recurring money on positions.

"Reoccurring income is what sustains payrolls," he said.

Selectmen and Advisory Board members discussed whether or not to consider a cost of living increase for non-union employees. Both groups asked Boushell for the figures for a 2 percent and a 2.5 percent raise.

Bickford expressed concern that raises were being concerned with the tight budgets.

"In general business there are cutbacks and no raises," she said.

Carlisle said the town has to balance the equity of union personnel, who have contracted raises, and non-union personnel that do not. He said if these aren't balance "you're saying why don't you go out and unionize."

In other business:

Board members also discussed two citizen's petitions submitted by Johnson for the Annual Town Meetings. One of Johnson's articles is to form a Capital Planning Committee, which would be a change to the town's current bylaws that have a subcommittee comprised of members of the Advisory Board and Planning Board responsible for the creation of a capital plan.

The bylaw states the plan should be developed by October of each year based on requests and submissions by the department heads.

At the Selectmen's last meeting the issue of time came up for discussion.

"I didn't like to be lambasted during that meeting," said Advisory Board member Dottie Munroe.

Johnson said he had not received positive feedback on the proposal.