Friday, January 2, 2009

Selectman want to add another $3,641,817.00 to budget spending

Here are the final BOS Warrant Articles to be place on the 2009 ballot. In a time when every area town and the state is cutting back expenses and laying some employees off, our town's elected official continue on with the status quo of adding more expenditures to an already over bloated budget. Are they really working for us the taxpayer and the best interest of Winchester? You be the judge ...

$ WARRANT ARTICLES APPROVED BY THE BOS $

ARTICLE 1 To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of Three Million Four Hundred Thousand Dollars ($3,400,000.00) for the purpose of preparing plans and specifications, and for the reconstruction of the Winchester Wastewater Treatment Plant, that will qualify the Town for federal and state funds, such sum to be raised by serial bonds and notes, under and in compliance with the provisions of the Municipal Finance Act (NHRSA 33:1 et seq as amended) and to authorize the Board of Selectmen to issue and negotiate such bonds or notes, to determine the interest rate thereon, and to take such actions as may be necessary to effect the issuance, negotiation, sale and delivery of such bonds or notes as shall be in the best interest of the Town of Winchester; and further to authorize the Board of Selectmen to apply for, accept, and expend grants, donations, and gifts, and to participate in the State Revolving Fund, established pursuant to RSA 486:14? To be enacted, this article requires a 3/5 vote. Recommended by the Board of Selectmen, 5-0. [If passed, taxation will not be impacted by this appropriation until 1 year after the completion of this project in 2012]

ARTICLE 2 To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of $40,000.00 for the Town’s share of State road grant reconstruction costs for bridges and place it in the non-lapsing Capital Reserve Fund established at the March 2006 Town Meeting under Article 19 for that purpose? Recommended by the Board of Selectmen, 4-0.

ARTICLE 3 To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of $28,677.00 to be placed in the Capital Reserve Fund established under Article 16 at the 2006 Town Meeting for the purpose of performing the assessing update or revaluation of the real estate in the Town of Winchester scheduled for 2009-2010? Recommended by the Board of Selectmen, 5-0.

ARTICLE 4 To see if the Town will raise and appropriate $24,800.00 as the fourth of five lease-to-purchase payments for the 2004 International dump truck, plow, and sander package? Recommended by the Board of Selectmen, 5-0.

ARTICLE 5 To see if the Town will vote to establish a Capital Reserve Account under the provisions of RSA 35:1 III for the purpose of future upgrades and/or purchase of the town’s computers and networking system, and to raise and appropriate the sum of $10,000.00 to be placed in this fund with the Board of Selectmen being the agent of said fund? Recommended by the Board of Selectmen, 4-0.

ARTICLE 6 To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of $15,000.00 for promoting commercial and industrial development in the Town, and name the Board of Selectmen as agents to expend said funds? This is to be a non-lapsing account. Recommended by the Board of Selectmen, 4-0.

ARTICLE 7 To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of $10,000.00 to be placed in the Police Cruiser Capital Reserve Fund established in 2006 at the Town Meeting under Article 14? Recommended by the Board of Selectmen, 4-0. Budget recommendation?

ARTICLE 8 To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of $18,340.00 to payoff frozen sick time for Town employees? Recommended by the Board of Selectmen, 4-0.

ARTICLE 9 To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of $5,000.00 to hire a professional firm to prepare an impact fee schedule? Recommended by the Board of Selectmen, 4-0.

ARTICLE 10 To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of $6,000.00 to support the annual Pickle Festival? Recommended by the Board of Selectmen, 5-0.

ARTICLE 11 To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate an amount not to exceed $18,000.00 to be deposited in the Evergreen Expendable General Care Trust Fund established by an affirmative vote by the 1998 Town Meeting as Article 11; the source of these funds to be withdrawn from the surplus generated by the perpetual care funds already established for the care and maintenance of lots within the Evergreen cemetery, and not from taxation. Recommended by the Board of Selectmen, 5-0.

ARTICLE 12 To see if the Town will raise and appropriate the sum of $50,000.00 for the purpose of subsidizing youth recreation in the Town to be paid to the E.L.M. Memorial Community Center on a contractual basis? Inserted by Petition. Recommended by the Board of Selectmen, 4-0.

ARTICLE 13 Are you in favor of raising and appropriating the sum of Six Thousand Dollars ($6,000.00) for the support of The Winchester Learning Center, provided that the Winchester Learning Center raises an equal or greater amount from other sources? Inserted by Petition. Recommended by the Board of Selectmen, 3-0, with 2 abstentions.

ARTICLE 14 To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate up to $10,000.00 to reimburse the trust fund for the purchase a new boiler for the Conant Public Library? Recommended by the Board of Selectmen, 5-0.

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

I find it odd that there is never any dissenting votes among the selectman, its not because some don't get it, its more like why be the bad guy when your going to lose anyway.Maybe its time to go back to three, it may help with the pier pressure. You would think that after we got rid of Stetser[big spender] they would stop and think of the will of the people, and not just cater the the dept. heads who could care less about about the tax payers in town that make about half as much money as they do.

Anonymous said...

Article 12 No problem with the ELM CTR, but when you are asking for this kind of money it doesn't look good to have a vehicle with vanity plates. Maybe it was a donation, no idea, but these are things that turn people off. Last year the vote was very close.

Anonymous said...

I heard the director donated her own car to the ELMM Center.

Anonymous said...

re: Article 9, the Budget Committee saw through this farce and voted it down at Land Use dept meeting. Margaret Sharra was very upset about this and it looks like she ran to the BOS to get her way. If they want to implement a scale for impact fees, they could simply use the same scale set up by other communities such as Keene with no cost to Winchester. Why bother to have a Budget Committee if all departments heads have to do is run to the Selectmen every time something they want gets voted down. Might as well open a checking account for all dept. heads and allow them carte blanche.

Anonymous said...

Article 7 As long as they are using these cars on all this detail work, and if the detail work is so good for the town, let the detail compensation pay for the new cruisers. Detail work takes its toll on our vehicles, and its used to inflate retirement, its one of the reasons the state budget is in trouble.

Anonymous said...

#1 - NO WAY!
#5 - Didn't Stetser purchase a new computer on the Town's credit card just before he left? Wouldn't new computers fall under "office supplies". If the funds are in the budget, then purchase one. But don't put extra funding on the budget for it.
#8 - No one ever gets compensated for "frozen" sick leave. This is designed as security for when a person does get sick and they can still get paid. It is NOT extra money/income. Companies large and small would never have this policy. There are those that have "comp time" and this is completely different from sick time.
#10 - I say if they can afford to have a FREE fireworks display the night before, they have way too much money already! If they are looking for extra money, charge for parking....
#13 - Isn't this a "for profit" business? They don't need to put their hand out to those that can't afford it (every tax payer). They would have better luck receiving more money with fundraisers.
#14 - why were they buying a boiler they couldn't afford. I don't understand this one?

All of the Warrant Articles are very distressing! As I have said before - why is it that every "default" budget is MORE than the year before? Especially the School's?

Talk to all of your neighbors and stress the importance of attending the Deliberative Session! We need to get hundreds to attend! Even the Snowbirds!

Anonymous said...

I agree

Anonymous said...

oooops...... but not with the fireworks comment

the Winchester Informer said...

Question for the members of the Board of Selectmen and the Budget Committee. By not cutting money out of the over inflated budget we already have and by adding more to it in the way of wage increases, cost of living adjustments ( did you get one where you work this year? ), over paying unqualified people to fill positions at the town hall ( haven't we paid for the training of many of these employees? ) buying unneeded and unnecessary equipment for the Highway Dept. and Fire Dept. ( just how many Scott Air Packs do we need? ) and overpaying for it and generally blowing money like a drunken sailor ( apologies to the Navy ) I'd like to know just where all of this extra money is suppose to come from ? If the upcoming town re-evaluations are just and fair ( and I really question that they will be by my own personal experiences ) and reflect the 13-18% drop in market values, decreasing the property tax payments for everyone in town, how are you going to make up difference?

FedUp2 said...

The wastewater treatment upgrades should be paid for by those who use it, and billed on their sewer bill.

I already have to pay for my own private septic system. Why should I pay for everyone else's as well?

When I had to replace my leach field - did the town help me? NO!

This should not be allowed on our property taxes!

Anonymous said...

Its a nasty sichuation that has to be fixed, i don't agree with FedUp2, but i understand him or her being pissed off. The only plus i see is Rick is on the job and he is by far the best employee in town. When he gets a handle on the plant he can take over the water dept and save us a lot of money. If we get lucky with the wood chip plant we may come out of this better than we think. This never should have happened, but its no ones fault that works for the town now.Things like this happen when the people in charge aren't a little more hands on,its a sad state of affairs.

Anonymous said...

My wife and I have build several nice homes in Winchester and tried to build several others and we were stopped from frustration when the town officials gave us nothing but grief, red-tape and jump threw hoops, especially the so called sewer commissioners who had total control of the plant. All the elected officials had a hand in who they choose to allow to build what. First they wouldn't give me a lateral on Michigan Street when they installed a sewer line past my land where I was build our home, then later stopping us from extending the line 110 feet at our cost on Michigan Street to a another lot the excuse was the sewer plant was up to 85% capacity and a moratorium was placed on connections to the sewer plant. That was 20 years ago. I wasn't the only one they screwed with and controlled who was allowed to connect like Gary Rokes and many others. Still to this day no major improvement had been made to up grade the plant past 85%, yet in the fast few years we have nothing but added usage with many homes, Butch Plifka developments, laundry mats, low income, heath care clinic on and on. While the selectmen gave $70,000.00 of our federal community development money to extend the sewer line down Snow road for Gary Beaman for exchange for a place to turn the town snow plow around, how about that.

Now the plant is stretched to the limits from development, they wants us the none users to bail them out. As soon as we bail them out, people like Margaret Sharra and her circle of friends are waiting to add more development like her condo project on Main Street which in turn add to the school burden we already have. My vote will be no the sewer plant.

Anonymous said...

Why should people who do not have town water or town sewer be FORCED to pay for a service they don't have? I agree with FedUp2, let those who have this service, pay for it. Perhaps if the town had done this years ago and stopped allowing people to continue to hookup to an antiquated system, it wouldn't be costing the taxpayers as much as they are asking for now.

I disagree with you Rte>119, those in charge now are equally at fault and share the blame. Instead of implementing a moratorium of hookups, they have allowed certain insiders and a few others to continue to add to this problem by permitting them to connect new service. Things like this happen when you have people in charge doing favors for their friends and not acting in a manner they were elected to do, period.

Anonymous said...

All good points, that's why these web sites are so important.

Anonymous said...

Sewer and Water should be self supporting, Isnt that why people who use these services get a bill.
the town must not be charging the people who use water and sewer enough if tax payers need to step in and fork out money!

Anonymous said...

I completely agree that the water/sewer problem is getting out of hand .. however, I own 2 homes in Winchester .. one of them unfortunately, is using the towns water/sewer system .. every 3 months I get a bill for an amount between $600 - $800- completely ridiculous. My point is, I already pay enough for the Sh** to roll down hill - I certainly don't want to pay again with taxes.


As far as the ELM Center .. Why so much? They charge to use the hall when there is an event going on, (town related or not). What do they do to possibly generate needing this much money?

I say give the Learning Center what they need.

Pickle Festival ... WHY? They too charge each person for setting up a booth - the Pickles I thought were donated? Maybe not? The bands are being paid? Why? Why not ask the fine people of Winchester to donate their talents instead of their money and make it a real Town Festival? Besides Pickles, Booths, and Music what else is there to pay for?

Frozen Sick pay? HELLO? Where is your head at? Why did this even MAKE THE BALLOT?


Article #1 ---- NO WAY!

Anonymous said...

you dont have kids, this is evident because if you had them you would know what the ELMM does with the money voters give them

why do you feel the learning center needs it ? what do they use it for?

Pickle fest is 1 of the good and fun things that bring people together in this small town, fire works are expensive. Its 1 of the reasons I like living here
Money well spent.

we need to spend less on stupid stuff, and more on bringing our community together
If you dont like community events go live in the desert or something

Anonymous said...

That is kind of a sower grapes answer to our financial problems.Its like if I don't have kids why should i pay for school or the ELM ctr, not on town sewer, why should i pay, i don't use Forest Lake so i can't pay for town beach.You get it, where does it end? If you like the ELM ctr explain what they do, the same with town beach, the learning ctr,and the pickle fest.I think who ever runs the web site would like to see positive statements. The voters, the people that pay the bills, just want accountability, not the get your nose out of our business that seems the attitude of most of the town employees.

Anonymous said...

If you had gone to the meeting last night 1/13/09 you would of heard the answers to your questions. obviously you did not attend

Anonymous said...

Its hard to swallow the BS that the dept. heads throw at you at these meetings. They keep proving that there agenda may not be in the best interest of the tax payer, and they can't stand anyone that would question what they want to spend. People should go and question, then get ready to be an outcast. Don't want to upset the people in power if your ever going to need a town service. That's why they don't show up.

Anonymous said...

We do need to update the sewer. I worked for the firm that did the original design 30 years ago. The sewer was designed to last 20 years. Perhaps with a new administration we can get federal funding. I do agree that a few individuals should not control the town. It makes me wonder where all the tax money goes.

Anonymous said...

okay, just to clear up a few things -

#1. ELMM Center: I have grandchildren, neices, and nephews, going to school. I just want to know what generates that kind of money usage for the ELMM Center. (PS- I love the ELMM Center - I have always voted in favor of.) I just feel that is a LOT of money to ask with out telling us WHY they need it? Oil? Lights? Insurance? Updating the building? What?

#2. The Pickle Festivle really does need to show us what they are spending their money on. Seriously ... do we really spend that much on Fireworks? If So, maybe they need to look at something else that would be less costly and just as entertaining for our community... I am not against our community, I am against frivolous spending, when I myself am pinching pennies just to buy a gallon of 2% milk.

#3. The Learning Center is a valuable asset to this community. Just like the ELMM Center and the School. A lot of our little ones go there, they spend almost all day there as their parents need to work. These are the same parents that are paying taxes - the children are being well taken care of and at the same time learning social skills and such. The same with the Access program at the school. It takes care of out older children, and the Learning center provides services for our younger children. Obviously I could say the same to you as you said to me .. you must not have any children, otherwise you would know. and, another point I woulld like to add.. the ELMM Center and the Learning Center is opened all year round, where the Pickle Festivle is only 1 day a year.

#4. The Sewer System - yes, I agree we do need to update the system, I am just upset that I have to pay so darn much for it already, and still have to pay for it with my tax dollars too. There is only so much money one person can pay ...

#5. Going to the meetings gets nothing done... voting the right way does. Getting more facts out as to why we need more money for this and that will help a lot...

I love Winchester, I plan on staying here... I just want to know where all this money is going.

Anonymous said...

There is way too much self interest in concocting these budgets and warrant articles. Time to clean house and get things back to a reasonable tax rate again. Just vote no, and be done with them .

Anonymous said...

This morning, in the early newspaper accounts, ecconomists providing information for the NH house budget committees etc. were providing estimates that there were several bad years ahead for the state. Predictions included that possibility that home values could fall as much as 23% before we hit the bottom, and that there could be as many as 16,000 jobs lost in this state. To believe that the state is going to keep pumping up the coffers is ridiculous, and the selectment better get their courage up and make the cuts now!! The voters have to act while it is still in time to do so.