Selectmen Slammed by BudCom for Road Program Warrant
One member was shocked at the way Selectmen have chosen to package the article.
A town warrant article related to Salem's road program was heavily criticized by members of the Budget Committee this week as some were upset with the way the article was packaged to include a bonded item of $976,000.
The article, which will appear as no. 7 on the ballot, totals $5,620,000 with $4,615,000 to be deposited into the Roadway Capital Reserve Fund.
But some committee members, especially Vice Chairman Paul Huard, felt that the bonded item, which is related to water main improvements primarily underneath Pond Street, puts the entire project at risk.
"I find that position absolutely unbelievable that we would risk the road program because someone wants to do it differently," he said of the article's structure. "We've been working hard to get the road program underway after years of neglect, and now we have placed something in here that puts that in jeopardy."
With a bonded item, an article needs 60 percent of the vote rather than a simple majority.
Selectman Representative Stephen Campbell defended his board's majority vote on Article 7.
"The main reason for doing it was to limit the number of articles," he said. "This is the first year the town was going to be in Senate Bill 2 and we didn't want a phone book for a ballot."
Campbell said that the Selectmen are not afraid of letting the people of Salem decide what they want.
"It's part of democracy," he said.
Both Huard and School Board Representative Pamela Berry argued that the entire road program belongs in the budget, not as a warrant article.
"We all appreciate our roads being fixed," Berry said. "Having decent roads to drive on is not a want, it's a need. I think a need belongs in the budget. I think it shows poor leadership from the Board of Selectmen to make things as crucial as our roads a want, not a need."
Campbell responded that as far back as he can remember, road articles have not been part of the operating budget.
Committee Chairman Russell Frydryck said that while he felt it might have been prudent to split the two parts of the article up, he would still support the article because of the importance of roads.
Despite committee reservations, a 6-1-1 preliminary recommendation for Article 7 was made.
Visit here to see more information on the Pond Street decision by Selectmen, which took place on Dec. 3.
Jeff Hatch
6:57 am on Friday, January 11, 2013
What a load of dodo. This was just an opportunity for those Budcom members that are in the tank for the school district to gang up on Stephen.
Patriot
7:26 am on Friday, January 11, 2013
The school system has always been ahead of the curve when it came to getting their inflated budget by the voters. The town would be better served to take their lead. Giving people no limit credit cards insures good government. As we have all witnessed, it is good to have irresponsible spending. The people always have the right to file bankruptcy.
Mr Hurd, retired school system employee that just can't retire from spending tax dollars!!!!!
Riley Reid
11:05 am on Friday, January 11, 2013
Paul Hurd is not a "spender". He just realizes there is a cost to doing business and there are some things that we need to pay for now and not put off
Patriot
4:05 pm on Friday, January 11, 2013
"Paul Hurd is not a spender?" OK, so one of 2 things are in play here. First the flue is going around or Riley Reid is a career politician.
After a career in the school system one would think any honest person would admit there is something that can be eliminated. What did Mr. Hurd eliminate?
Patriot
7:35 am on Friday, January 11, 2013
The discussion should surround balance. Is there a balance with town employees (or former) and residence that have to pay the bill. I see most town/school district employees live out of town. Reason?
To expensive, but yet they continue to drive our tax rate up.
They want privacy, because they don't want to face the resident that has to pay.
Other reason, feel free to add, most employees live out of town where they spend our tax money and don't have to live with the results. (look at your leadership)
Simon Says
8:09 am on Friday, January 11, 2013
Some selectmen (and town employees) think taxpayers have deep pockets. We don't.
Stephen Campbell
8:19 am on Friday, January 11, 2013
The town portion of the tax rate in 2012 went down 3.7%. The proposed budget for 2013 had an almost 1% decrease. I would agree with your comment about past Boards of Selectmen. I think the majority of the current Board understand peoples ability to pay. The School Board on the other hand does not understand peoples ability to pay. The number of students has been going down for years and yet every year they ask for increases.
Stephen Campbell
Patriot
4:08 pm on Friday, January 11, 2013
What is the "Projected Tax Rate" for 2013?
*
What is the projected budget for both sides of the budget? School/Town
Simon Says
8:29 am on Friday, January 11, 2013
If the number of students go down so should the schools budget.
Riley Reid
11:02 am on Friday, January 11, 2013
Cost's are rising across the board in every aspect of life. Just because enrollments have dropped a little I don't think you'll see any drastic savings. Imagine what we'd be paying had the enrollments increased
salem mom
7:17 pm on Friday, January 11, 2013
Ms. Reid, Enrollments have dropped more than "a little" and are expected to drop even more over the next 5 years. You would think at some point, someone would consider at least holding costs firm and not increasing.
Riley Reid
11:16 am on Friday, January 11, 2013
Everyone remember who wanted Senate bill 2 and how hard they fought for it. Now they are all whining because it's not working out like they planned.
Hate to say it but "we told you so".
Patriot
3:52 pm on Friday, January 11, 2013
What does Senate bill 2 have to do with the cost of running a school?
Simon Says
12:19 pm on Friday, January 11, 2013
If the number of students go down so should the schools budget. Just to repeat myself.
Simon Says
12:50 pm on Friday, January 11, 2013
If the number of students goes down, The number of Teachers should go down.
Love NH
1:17 pm on Friday, January 11, 2013
Right. Because there is one teacher for every student. If you reduce the number of 3rd graders at a school by 10% you can't cut off 1/10th of a teacher. The number of students needs to go down enough to eliminate an entire class. And yes, the high school and middle school has reduced the number of teachers every year for the past 3 or 4 years.
Brian
2:00 pm on Friday, January 11, 2013
What I don't get is this article is discussing the Road Project and yet the issue of school renovations are also being discussed ?!?!? Just because the student population has gone down slightly doesn't mean the cost of goods and/or services also go down reciprocally. Who thinks that ???
Dr. NO
2:55 pm on Friday, January 11, 2013
Adding the road program into the budget takes power away from the people who have to pay for it and gives the control to the selectmen. Having to vote for the program every year brings added scrutiny to where the money is going, not a bad thing in my estimation. Also since the school budget was brought up I want to add this; if the decision is not made to close the Haigh the voters may lose faith in those who are making the spending proposals and vote down all the improvement money. Just like in any family budget, when times are tough, tough choices must be made.
Underwater Couple
8:19 pm on Friday, January 11, 2013
School Enrollments K-12
04-05 5,302
05-06 5,296
06-07 5,217
07-08 5,132
08-09 4,959
09-10 4,794
10-11 4,574
That is "Down A Lot" not a little
Underwater Couple
6:50 am on Saturday, January 12, 2013
School Enrollment Projections
11-12 4281 (current)
12-13 4,164-4,065
13-14 4,091-3,901
14-15 3,980-3,707
15-16 3,899-3,555
16-17 3,764-3,402
Should we hold our breaths for property tax decreases?
salem mom
3:03 pm on Monday, January 14, 2013
Here is the source document for Underwater's enrollment counts......
http://www.sau57.org/2012Documents/demographics-enrollment-projections.pdf
Riley Reid
3:33 pm on Monday, January 14, 2013
Let's make it simple for all you people with your enrollment numbers and thinking we should be saving money at the schools because the numbers are down.
How about this ?
With the exception of the North Salem Fire Station and the Senior Center, Salem hasn't built any new schools since the late 60's and early 70's. Salem hasn't built any new roads, we leave that for developers to do. So if I imply the same reasoning you do with school numbers Salem should be sitting on a huge pile of cash from all the tax monies we've never spent.
So who's going to be the first to blame employee benefits and salaries?
Reggie
3:46 pm on Monday, January 14, 2013
What percent of the tax increases going back a decade went to Town/School Employees? I'll guess 100%
salem mom
4:24 pm on Monday, January 14, 2013
What if you have a family of 3 and you child (God willing) grows up, gets a job and moves out. Your spending does not decrease by 33%, but it certainly decreases by some amount (perhaps 15% - 20%). Now if you were smart and saved early for retirement, you might be lucky enough to increase spending on travel, but that is a nice to have, not a must have.
If you are still with me, our school enrollments are projected to drop 35% from '04 to '17 and we have experienced a ridiculous amount of school tax increases (renovations aside). Of couse inflation is an item that can wipe that savings out (including the employee benefits and salaires), but i'm wondering if someone has the numbers on the total number of staff we have (not just teachers, but adminstrators too). I'd bet my lunch money that we have not dropped headcount by 15-20%.
salemvoter
5:47 pm on Monday, January 14, 2013
School committee representative Pam Berry lecturing on "needs and wants". She is a member of the school committee that deferred spending budgeted money on school maintenance for all these years, because they have a bottom line budget, and chose to spend money allocated for maintenence elsewhere. And she lectures on "needs and wants". Amazing.