Last Night's Budget Committee Meeting

The Budget Committee tabled discussing salaries until the town makes a decision on benefits. Currently, Ashland is one of two towns in New Hampshire that pays 100% of health insurance for employees. Last year the budget committee asked the town to have employees contribute to their health insurance, but the town has delayed doing so while it negotiates with the employee union. In retorspect the town probably should have maade this decision before negotiating with the union.

Sandra Coleman pointed out that the town employees were given a $.50 per hour raise two years ago to help offset the contribution to their health insurance but then were not asked to contribute. This year the town is asking for a 1.5% pay increase to help offset the cost of the employee contribution to health insurance. Ingrid Heidenreich said that a 1.5% salary increase during a recession is too much for taxpayers. In addition, employees get 120 hours of sick time and can get paid for up to 1 week of accrued time at the end of the year. Employees who do not take health insurance can opt to receive 25% of the cost of their policy. These benefits might have been appropriate at one time, but unfortunately we simply cannot afford to continue them.

Steve Felton presented a comparison showing that Ashland's police budget is much higher than towns with similar populations. His figures are similar to the figures I presented in a recent article. My comparison showed that the police budget in 2009 was $347,253 higher than towns with populations within 500 people more or less than Ashland. There are a number of factors that contribute to this difference including crime rate, salaries and benefits, and equipment needs. However, the difference is large enough to warrant further research into the police budget and other areas that are high like Parks and Recreation.

Our overall budget is also much higher than towns of similar size, a fact that accounts for our high tax rate. There is also another problem we need to consider in developing the budget. We do not have enough capital in reserve for long term expenses, and we have no plan to address these expenses. The Planning Board, the body that has the responsibility for developing the capital improvement plan, has put off establishing a committee to develop a plan until after the next election. Finally, our property values have decreased significantly. Ultimately this will reduce the tax base and lead to a corresponding increase in the tax rate.

Because we are in a recession, it is imperative that we bring our expenses in line with other small towns. Considering our financial situation, we are not in the position of deciding between what we want and what we need; we are in the position of having to decide which needs are most important.