The Marion fiscal year 2018 budget has been finalized, and the $21,950,375 sum now awaits the approval of town meeting members come this May 8.
The Marion Board of Selectmen met with the Finance Committee on April 4 to briefly go over the finalized budget which, said Finance Committee Chairman Alan Minard, is a balanced one.
For this current fiscal year of 2017, said Minard, the financial state of the Town is “in fairly stable condition,” with only a few matters like ice and snow over-expenditures to deal with; however, he emphasized, as mandated, the FY18 budget is in fact balanced.
“It’s getting harder to do each year,” Minard said. With rising costs, unfunded mandates from the State and with Proposition 2½, “That limits the amount of money we can raise and in many instances we get requests from all departments that greatly exceed the amount of money that we actually have.”
Heftier increases this year include the ORR budget by $230,000, Minard said. Sippican School is also up $69,000. The police budget is up some as well, with an additional $21,000 for Marion’s share of a full-time ORR school resource officer; an $18,000 increase for a new part-time 15-hour-per-week administrative assistant; over $33,000 in overtime pay to cover the shift of an injured officer; and $43,000 for the cost of new officers and planning for staff retirements.
Other things the Town has no control over, Minard said, such as health insurance hikes and pensions, are up $170,000.
The Town was able to save some money in cleaning services, Minard pointed out, and in some cases, such as with the library, consolidating the cleaning services down to one contractor throughout the town buildings saves tens of thousands of dollars.
All in all, said Minard, the FY18 budget is a little over 3% from last year. A “reasonable” budget, he called it.
“Looking to the future, I think we’ve been very prudent in our planning,” said Minard. And with $1.32 million of the $9.4 million in Town OPEB (other post-employment benefits) liability tucked away, Minard said, “This puts us way ahead of most of the towns in the community and one of the reasons we’re continuing to maintain our bond rating, so this is smart business.”
The selectmen took the Finance Committee’s recommendation that the Town contribute $5,000 in collaboration with Mattapoisett and Rochester to fund a fiscal analysis of the Old Rochester Regional School District’s spending habits, as first suggested by Mattapoisett Town Administrator Michael Gagne.
“I think that we all kind of suspect that [spending is] a lot looser than it should be, and it’s a pretty expensive place for loose finances,” said Minard.
An article will be added to the Annual Town Meeting Warrant asking to appropriate the $5,000 towards the study.
The board also closed and approved an Annual Town Meeting Warrant with 51 articles, and a Special Town Meeting Warrant of five articles.
In other matters, Town Administrator Paul Dawson said the Environmental Protection Agency has given the Town some good news, as well as some bad news.
First, Dawson was happy to announce that the EPA, in regards to the impending NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) permit, has agreed to the Town’s request to lessen nitrogen output standards from the EPA’s prior level of 3 to a level of 4.
“That’s good news,” said Dawson. “Very good news.”
Dawson reported that the EPA has also agreed to allow the Town to extend its wastewater discharge pipe out farther from the salt marsh as a way to bypass phosphorus emissions, as requested by the Town.
The bad news, though, is that the EPA has still not moved on its position that the three wastewater treatment plant sludge lagoons would either have to be fully lined (which they presently are not) or abandoned entirely.
“And that’s obviously going to be an extremely significant cost,” said Dawson. “The EPA remains rock solid in its [position].”
Also during the meeting, the Town House Building Committee (THBC) expressed a desire to work with proponents of a VFW site feasibility study, proposing now a THBC subcommittee to be comprised of four proponents of the citizen’s petition featured on the Town Meeting Warrant requesting its own committee to study the VFW site study, along with three original members of the THBC.
The consensus is that this merger of interests would expedite the feasibility study process and efficiently deliver the funding in order to begin.
THBC Chairman Bob Raymond said, “We’re all of the same mind; we really believe that the townspeople deserve a deep dive … into the feasibility study.”
Raymond said the subcommittee would work autonomously from the original THBC, which would have no right to veto or alter any determinations or decisions the subcommittee contrived.
“We want to make sure that this is a clean process,” said Raymond. “We may end up disagreeing with them,” he added, but at least the public would receive two clearly presented sides. “We think the voters deserve that,” Raymond said.
Also on the agenda, the selectmen invited the ORR/Fairhaven Varsity Hockey Team and its coach Eric Labonte to the meeting for praise and accolades on its accomplishment this year.
Chairman Jody Dickerson. “You represented the school well, and especially the town well. You made us very proud of you.”
The board also approved Police Chief Lincoln Miller’s request to appoint Scott Cowan as a full-time police officer.
The board continued Tabor Academy’s request to tie into an existing sewer connection for the construction of an additional 24-student dormitory that would replace an existing dorm, without expanding the population of students at Tabor. The Department of Public Works has recommended the request; however, Dickerson wanted to gather further information before approval.
Dawson announced that the joint meeting of the three Tri-Town boards of selectmen would be April 27 at 6:30 pm in the ORRJHS media room.
The next meeting of the Marion Board of Selectmen is scheduled for April 18 at 7:00 pm at the Marion Town House.
By Jean Perry
