|Peter Bragdon, Candidate for Selectman|
As you may have heard by now, the selectmen decided to make some changes to the budget and reinstate positions. This included a full time public works position at 40 hours, the planner to 36 hours (was 40), the recreation director to 36 hours (was 40) and the assistant librarian to 20 hours (was 36) while cutting the head librarian to 36 hours (was 40).I want to start by giving the town manager credit for pulling together all the numbers and the public works director for finding more cuts. No one throughout this process wanted to make these original cuts but many felt we had no choice in order to balance the budget.
I still have concerns about where the money is coming from as I don’t believe excise tax and state revenue sharing are reliable sources. At this point we can only hope and pray that it comes in as predicted. It is great to see these positions added in the budget, don’t get me wrong. The challenge is how we balance the services and the taxes. 10% of people in New Gloucester are living in poverty and I am sure there are many others that are facing huge life challenges and unable to pay their bills. New Gloucester has food insecurity just like every other town. Someone attested to this in a public comment, they work with several people in our town and other towns and they see it first hand on a daily basis.
I really think the library got the short end of the deal here. Kudos to Tammy Donovan for fighting for the library even though unsuccessful. Why is the library being hit the hardest? If the goal was to keep our employees and keep our community intact then why did we strip the assistant librarian of 16 hours a week and her medical benefits!! The town manager was able to provide a figure of $27,000 to restore the assistant librarian to her current level. I understand this is keeping the library open but one could argue 20 hours at the parks and recreation is keeping that department open, cutting a public works position would still keep the public works open but they funded those positions with benefits.
I have preached thru out this that we don’t talk about the person but only the position. I know it is hard to do but that’s budgeting. Putting that aside for a moment we are not being fair to Carla by any means in this. If I was in her shoes after last night I would be devastated and hurt. The library staff should know that many townspeople supported the library and fought to keep it fully staffed. I agree 20 hours a week would be understandable if all the other positions did not get reinstated. Where it was decided to reinstate the other cuts and not the library I don’t feel it is okay.
There are options in front of the town’s people now, they can accept the budget the way it is or they can vote certain departments down or the whole budget down. I will let you develop your own conclusion on that. If departments are voted to zero I assume the board would go back to the drawing board.
Most all of the budget committee’s work has been wasted. Committee members gave tons of hours going thru this budget and at this point it really isn’t worth much. I will commend Karen Gilles for recognizing the work of the budget committee last night. It would be nice to have the new budget go back to the budget committee and have the town meeting in person at a later date. Unfortunately that is a dead end battle at this point.
The board did make some headway last night opening the library and the playgrounds. I appreciate that. I appreciate the common sense that was inserted last night into some topics. I am not saying everything they do is bad because that is not the case at all. It is this budget that has really been a challenge. One thing ballot voting will prove is how people really feel. By secret ballot people will be more apt to vote no on topics as others are not watching how they vote.
At this point the ball is in your hand, do we accept the budget as it is? Does this budget satisfy the needs of the town? There are several people that think too much was added in, there are people that want more added in. You can now decide at the ballot box which way the budget goes.
