Budget process completed in littleton

Littleton finishes 2018 budget process.

With a final 2-and-a-half-hour meeting on thursday, the Littleton budget committee cast its final votes on the 2018 budget. To prepare for Monday’s Board of Selectmen work session, the committee pushed through remaining votes, closing around 6:30 pm. The committee made a commitment to finish with their work by the end of this final meeting. In order to do so, a majority of the petitioned warrant articles were passed in a sweeping 6 to 0 group vote. In the interest of time, the board felt that this batch of returning petitioned warrant articles, ones that passed town vote in previous years, could pass as a committee with this single vote.

During the meeting, Board Chairman Steve Kelly asked “[articles] that were on last year, and approved … is there a sentiment that we would want to approve those as we’ve voted on them in the past, and supported them through the years…” However, there was additional discussion on the importance of groups presenting information to the budget committee as well. Though there was concern on the lack of organizations presenting to the board this year, a stronger impetus was on the moving of the articles and pushing through the agenda.

Fire-based EMS removed from ballot.

Another interesting development came through the Fire-based EMS articles; #13, #14, and #15 (Note: these were the article numbers at the time of publishing). Town Manager Andrew Dorsett recommended removing these articles from the ballot for this year. The EMS commission met with the Town Manager on Wednesday, a decision was made to be relieved of some of the timing pressure for this process. For them to be able to review the “proof of concept of fire-based EMS” appropriately, more time was needed.

The commission made a motion for the town to enter a short-term contract with an EMS service for the town while they reviewed all options. Manager Dorsett mentioned he was currently in discussions with two service providers already to service the town for 18 months. As discussions were ongoing he did not expand on the conversation further. This contract with a to-be-named company would provide the commission the time it needed to review the best solution for Littleton.

School district warrant articles failed in vote

For their final point of order, the Budget committee reviewed the SAU #84 operating budget, a support staff warrant article, the professional staff warrant article, and two retention of reserve funds articles. The operating budget passed with a vote of 6 to 0, as did the support staff warrant article (5 to 0, 1 abstention). However, the remaining articles all failed with a vote of 0 in favor, and 6 against.

Committee member Ralph Hodgman opened discussion on the Professional Staff warrant article with concern on the teacher ratio. Mr. Hodgman shared that the district’s current 10:1 student to teacher ratio was in the top 25% in NH. Yet, with this ratio, they did not present any teacher cuts. Rather, he continued, the step increase for each teacher was $575, along with the step increase for time. Ralph shared that this represented “a $1,925 increase, per year, for the next three years”. He said he “…can’t approve a salary increase unless [the budget committee] sees that made up by teacher reductions.”

Diane Cummings also commented that she also was having a hard time supporting the proposed teacher contract. She commented that “…we are already number 26, in the state, out of 156 school districts … for the highest beginning salary.”. Diane continued on to share that the Littleton SAU #84 was “… $3,000, $5,000, and $7,000 more than surrounding school districts in beginning salary wage.” After further discussion on the trajectory of the budget over the next handful of years, the budget committee voted on the article. The proposed professional staff warrant article failed with a vote of 0 in favor and 6 against.

Retention of funds warrant articles fail.

The other two articles presented to the budget committee for review also failed with a 0 to 6 vote. Those were the “placeholder” articles that appear on the ballot each year for the retention of funds. The first was for building maintenance in the amount of $50,000. The second was for an amount of $30,000 for equipment maintenance or replacement.

The 2018 budget season for Littleton is now complete, with the one caveat that the Town manager may invite them back for with more information to consider on the Foster Hill road issue.

The entire budget committee meeting is available for viewing below: