By Natalie De La Garza
Staff Writer
LIMESTONE — With fewer attendees than even last year, a scant audience of about 50 Limestone residents approved a municipal expense budget totaling $1,235,402 during the annual town meeting on June 19.
Approving the 27 articles involved little discussion and just about 40 minutes, as only one monetary deviation occurred between otherwise identical budgetary recommendations by the town’s selectpeople and budget committee members.
The selectpeople recommended a $1,000 donation to United Cerebral Palsy amidst social services expenditures; budget committee members omitted the funds from their suggested allocations, and voters sided with the budget committee with $38,388 approved for social services.
Other voter-approved amounts included:
• Administration: $226,360;
• Public Works: $387,055;
• Fire Department: $79,600;
• Library: $67,005;
• Parks and Recreation: $78,890;
• Insurance: $73,300;
• Utility services: $104,500;
• Solid waste disposal: $47,500;
• County tax: $75,862;
• Unclassified (allocating funds for services like the Humane Society, Chamber of Commerce and annual Fourth of July festivities): $18,528;
• Debt retirement: $38,914, and
• Reserve accounts: $0.
A failed motion was made to allocate $5,000 for Limestone’s revaluation reserve account; the town’s last revaluation occurred in 2003.
Town Manager Donna Bernier explained that the state recommends doing revaluations every 10 years, but officials expressed that the town could hold off on a revaluation for now.
“We talked to Randy Tarr [of Tarr Assessing Services], and he said we weren’t really in jeopardy to have it done in the next few years,” Bernier explained during the meeting.
With a revaluation anticipated to cost around $100,000, and the town’s revaluation reserve currently totaling $38,082, Bernier explained that if the town has insufficient funds in the reserve account to cover the cost of a revaluation, one of two things could probably happen.
“We’d have to borrow or take it our of surplus if it’s available … we couldn’t raise it all at one time,” she said.
Thompson reiterated his suggestion to set aside $5,000 for the revaluation reserve account.
“I think we ought to continue trying to put something in that every year, because the cost of revaluation since the last one has been steadily going up each year, and if we don’t make some attempt — when we get forced into it, then we’re going to have to come up with a lot of money,” he explained.
Current selectperson Gary O’Neal asked town meeting attendees to vote against Thompson’s motion.
“We worked hard as a group of selectpeople and budget committee to flat fund everything in the revenue accounts this year — we did it specifically because we cut about 25 to 29 percent of this budget to start with, and that’s what the governor is proposing,” O’Neal said, explaining that the final revenue sharing numbers haven’t come in yet. “We were asked by people in different sectors of the community to do one thing, and that was try to flat fund this budget so we wouldn’t have a mil increase.”
O’Neal explained that the budget was looking at approximately a .75 mil increase.
“This is a one-time thing for one year until we see what happens with the state,” he explained. “I ask you to defeat the $5,000 and support the budget committee and the selectpeople.”
Though Thompson pointed out that the additional funds reflected a $4,000 increase, as the town voted out the expenditure for United Cerebral Palsy, the $5,000 motion was defeated.
While most of the expenditures were up for discussion, two weren’t; Limestone’s voters had previously approved referendums to allocate $620,369 for RSU 39 and $247,000 for the Limestone Police Department during an election on June 11.
The town approved the RSU budget in a landslide, with 176 votes in favor and only 27 opposed.
The town’s approval of the Police Department budget didn’t have the same overwhelming approval; voters were asked to choose between 24-hour coverage and 18-hour coverage for police services, with respective budgets of $247,000 and $200,000. With only eight votes between them, the town approved 24-hour coverage with 106 votes; 98 people voted in favor of 18-hour coverage.
Also during the election, incumbent Selectperson Marilyn King won a second term hands-down with 155 votes; challenger Fred Pelletier received 49 votes. Running unopposed were James Cote to serve on the Board of Directors for the Limestone Water and Sewer Department, and Clifford Rhome for the RSU 39 school board. The town also approved changes to three ordinances regarding the recall of elected selectpeople, roadways and sidewalks, and fireworks.
As part of efforts to revitalize Limestone’s downtown, town meeting voters also approved the declaration of the downtown area blight designation, which grant writer David Wylie explained.
Last year, Limestone’s downtown was inspected and revealed what was considered to be about 25 percent of the total buildings and the general infrastructure of the downtown area to be slum/blighted; Wylie explained that formalizing the declaration of blight in the downtown area would be one step toward applying for a Downtown Revitalization Grant, which could pave the way for things like renovations to building exteriors or possible infrastructure improvements, like lighting.
“If you do approve it, it’s merely the first step, and that is the designation of the downtown as having slum/blight conditions that would merit improvement,” Wylie said.
