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Special Budget Meeting of the Lincoln Selectboard

Attending:  Barb Rainville, Brian Goodro, Elwin Isham,  Sally Ober, Larry Masterson, Lisa Truchon, Claude Rainville, Henry Wilmer, Suzie Wilmer, Mark Benz, Nancy Stevens, Tim Ware, Jeff Bercovitz, Joe Fedora, Roger Rood, Fred Thompson, Christine Moriarty, Mary Lu Harding, Mike Harding, Jacqueline Olson, Barry Olson, Ann Kensek

Question on Fiscal Year- FY 2012 goes from 7/1/11 through 6/30/2012.

Elwin talked about grant money.

 Discussion on making the budget easier to read and understand for the Town Report, hard to make 12 month to 12 month comparison because of 18 month budget that is still in progress.

Discussion on Tax Anticipation notes and interest.

Question on whether health insurance costs are for both the Town Office and Road Crew- yes.

Question on why the Lister Compensation went up so much- Last year work was done by Assessors as a part of the reappraisal. This year the Listers will be doing the work as well as updating info to make our tax maps more accurate. Lisa explained the process of keeping up with the CLA, Tax Maps, etc.

Question on the increase in Zoning Administrator costs- There are new Zoning Regs and the Administrator will need more time to get to know and implement the new Regs.

Discussion on taxes- The Selectboard held the line as much as they could. As it is, taxes would drop .08 on the Municipal rate. This excludes the school rate. The Selectboard forms their budget based on what they need to run the Town, not based on what the school will be asking for.

Mary Lu Harding asked about long term planning for the new Town Office and gravel for the roads. The Selectboard did step up the budget for gravel to try and get a couple of roads up to par. It is not just a problem of gravel, but of manpower. There is money in the budget to pave on Quaker Street.

Discussion on long term planning and staggering truck and equipment purchases.

Mark Benz said that the Burnham Committee is working to be “1998 Flood Ready”. They talked with ACRPC, who have helpful ideas and talked with Burnham Committee about long term planning. He suggested the Town might do the same.

Roger Rood asked if it is more cost effective to run our own trucks or contract gravel hauling. Comes out about the same.

There is still a Capital Plan in place. Discussion on ideas on Town Office Planning. Some different ideas are being tossed around. Work was done last year buy the Energy Committee at the Town Office, such as insulating under the floor.  A new furnace was bought with an eye toward expansion. There will be some work done on the windows in the spring. Elwin commented that the Capital Plan is fairly level funded till 2016. A comment was made that if money is set aside regularly it won’t hurt as much. Henry Wilmer commented that   it might be possible to get in a rotation to help the Capital fund.

Concerns were expressed about the poor turnout and getting people involved.

Question and discussion on equipment repairs and expenses.

Larry is buying NEMRC software – this is a big cost to the Town but as an automated accounting system it will help the Town. He will be running this year but not next.

Sally talked about why we need a new copier. Ours is 11 years old and we can no longer get parts to fix it. It doesn’t work very well right now.

Mary Lu Harding asked bout State Aid to highways and if that is a pretty sure thing- yes, it is.

Barb Rainville talked about PILT- the number in this year’s budget fell because last year’s budget head two payments where as this year’s only had one.

There is no new info on the Truchon Bridge.

The Town has a Better Back Roads grant for ditching on Elder Hill.

Discussion on the Grants process.

Mary LU Harding offered congratulations on the work on the Cemetery Bridge, and Elwin credited Les Tracy with pressuring the State to give us the grant so the work could be done.

Roger Rood talked about law enforcement and the Constables and why we have the Sheriff here. Discussion on the speed limits.

Discussion on getting cheaper road signs from a new source so less is needed in the budget.

 Discussion on signs for private roads and confusion about whether they are private or not. It is about 911 addresses. Any driveway with two houses on it must have a road sign for 911.

Minutes taken by Ann Kensek