Vassalboro budget committee meeting focuses on major costs

by Mary Grow

The March 24 and March 31 Vassalboro Budget Committee meetings each ran more than two hours and focused on some of the town’s major costs, like public works equipment. (See The Town Line issues of March 19, p. 2, and April 2, page 2, for more financial information.)

One issue debated at both meetings was how the town pays for major items, like a new truck. Currently, money is set aside for years until the accumulated fund almost equals the cost of a truck; then voters are asked to raise enough more to buy it immediately.

Why not, budget committee member Phil Landry asked at the March 24 meeting, buy a truck immediately and make payments?

Good idea, said fellow committee member Frank Richards, considering how much prices go up while the town is collecting the money.

Select board member Chris French said “the town” is “culturally” against borrowing. At the March 31 meeting, budget committee chaiman Peggy Schaffer remembered that historically, one budget committee and one select board member have opposed borrowing.

Schaffer’s interpretation was an annual debt payment created a “hard chunk we can’t move” that would appear in each future budget. On the other hand, she said, long-term financing might be easier on taxpayers.

On March 24, Schaffer pointed out the request for more than $35,000 for vehicle repairs for next year. She and committee member Douglas Phillips asked for more information on the trucks the town now has, which Road Commissioner Brian Lajoie supplied at the March 31 meeting. No decisions were made.

Also discussed repeatedly was whether Vassalboro should buy, or alternatively rent, portable traffic lights to put up at construction sites, instead of using road crew members as flaggers to control traffic when a road is partly closed.

Lajoie favors lights, so that all crew members can work on the road repair or on their many other jobs. Lights would require a utility trailer to move them. Again, no recommendation was made.

Discussion of road paving led Phillips to ask if money could be saved by making the new pavement layer thinner. Lajoie feared thinner pavement would break down faster.

Paving cost depends heavily on the cost of paving material. Lajoie said this year’s bids were to be opened on April 14.

The March 31 meeting began with Lauchlin Titus, chairman of the Vassalboro Sanitary District Board of Trustees, explaining why they are asking for town funding: multiple experts who are helping the district through hard times say it’s perfectly normal to ask town voters for up to two-thirds of annual debt service. VSD’s debt service is $133,000 a year.

With fewer than 200 customers to pay it, each contributes $645 a year, making Vassalboro’s sewer bills among the highest in Maine and a hardship for many customers, Titus said. Consequently, trustees agreed to ask for $30,000 from taxpayers town-wide.

Asked how long the debt payments continue, Titus’ first answer was “I’ll be dead” before they end. About 53 years, he said.

Budget committee member Richards hoped the committee would endorse the request, as preferable to “the nightmare that would ensue if the sanitary district goes belly up.”

Also attending the March 31 meeting were representatives of the Vassalboro Public Library. Co-Treasurer Dean Limberger explained the library’s first request in two years for a small increase in town support, saying it’s needed to cover increased – from inadequate to adequate – insurance coverage.

Phillips questioned the town employee pay scale that includes annual merit raises, as well as an annual cost of living increase. Schaffer expanded the discussion: the town has given the public works department new equipment and a new garage, the first responders who started working from home now get paid for a few hours a week at the fire station, there is discussion of an additional town office employee: expense “creep that hits the budget pretty hard.”

“Maybe we need to do these things, but what’s the five-year impact?” she asked.

Select board member Chris French’s reply focused on benefits Vassalboro offers employees. Some people might accept salaries lower than in the private sector because of the benefits, like the generous number of paid holidays and the public works staff’s four-day week in the summer, he said. On the other hand, lack of family health coverage has cost the town some good employees.

Before the March 31 meeting adjourned, committee members briefly discussed the increased Delta Ambulance request, over which towns have no control, and the Mill Hill bridge project.