Hampden officials: Mill rate will drop

HAMPDEN – The budget numbers are in, and town officials forecast a $1 drop in the mill rate for the 2005-06 year.

“Out tax rate’s going to go down,” Town Manager Susan Lessard said Thursday.

A $17.45 mill rate per $1,000 of valuation is expected, she said.

Overall, the $5.8 million municipal budget is up about 1 percent over last year, though the amount to be collected through taxes is down slightly. This year, taxpayers will be asked to contribute $7.3 million toward both the town and school budgets and the county tax.

Voters passed the $19.8 million SAD 22 budget on Tuesday.

A public hearing on the municipal budget will be held at 7 p.m. Monday, June 20.

Major changes to the proposed budget include the addition of two firefighter-paramedics, hired in place of the administrative position that was absorbed in March when Deputy Public Safety Chief Mike Andersen retired, Lessard said.

“The benefit that John Q. Public sees is a higher level of service,” she said.

Another change is the addition of a full-time staffer at the transfer station. That person will replace part-time workers and is needed to handle the growing workload at the facility, Lessard said. With salaries and benefits, employment of that staffer will cost $38,000, she said.

Another increase comes with a proposal to boost wages for town councilors. The town charter lists payment for councilors at $20 per meeting, and for the mayor $25 per meeting, but the council has discussed increasing the wages, Lessard said.

Councilors have taken no official vote on the matter, and the amount of the proposed wage change has not been determined, she said.

“What they did is fund the possibility for changing the rate,” Lessard said.

The council also added money in the budget to possibly fund a proposal by Councilor Thomas Brann to have the town pay for high-speed Internet access for councilors.

Brann expects more constituents to contact the councilors after Town Council meetings begin being televised on Monday, Lessard said. Brann said councilors could make their e-mail addresses available for that purpose, and they should have high-speed Internet service in order to access those e-mails, Lessard said.

The meetings will be broadcast on local cable access.

The budget sets aside for the service $50 a month for each of the seven council positions, she said.