Selectmen vote to cut own stipends

SOUTHWEST HARBOR – Selectmen refused Wednesday to recommend cuts in the proposed Pemetic Elementary School budget, but they agreed to eliminate entirely their own $2,000 annual stipends to save the town $10,000 next year.

The board left only $500 in the municipal budget for expenses for the board chairman.

The 3-2 vote was an effort to show weary property taxpayers that the selectmen are serious about trying to find savings where they can. Selectmen Skip Wilson, chairman, and Trudy Bickford voted against the cut.

Bickford, who asked the board to consider cutting the town budget by 2 percent in departments such as police and dispatch and general government, voted against cutting the selectmen’s salary. Bickford said she didn’t support cutting the board’s stipend when other expenses were not also reduced.

“We have to start making some tough decisions,” she said. “We’re driving people out of town” with continuous property tax increases. “I’d like to make it so people can stay here as long as possible.”

Selectmen commended Town Manager Kenneth Minier for holding down the town’s operational budget and, in many departments, for recommending lower funding next year than what was raised for the current budget. Much of the increase in the town budget is attributed to higher personnel costs, especially benefits, and increases in fixed costs such as long-term debt.

The town warrant committee, which makes an independent review of both the proposed school and town budget, recommended a spending reduction of about $100,000. But a majority of the board didn’t buy into the suggestion, even as they warned school committee members that they would face a tough town meeting in May.

Selectman Lyle Dever noted that the school committee has acknowledged it plans to keep at least one fourth-grade teacher on the payroll next year even though she is not needed because of an anticipated drop in class enrollment.

School committee member Debra Gilley told selectmen that board members want to retain the teacher because they expect a rebound in fourth-grade enrollment in the next year.

Eric Henry, school committee chairman, said the board has tried hard to control spending, but noted that much of the increase is due to unfunded federal and state mandates, contracted salary increases for staff members and continued hikes in health insurance.

Gilley, elected to the board last November, told selectmen that because so much of the school spending is uncontrollable, cutting the school budget would hurt only students.

The board voted 3-1-1, with Bickford opposed, to approve the school committee’s budget plan. The motion was made by Pam Norwood, who works for School Union 98, of which Pemetic is a part.