3-14-09

Walpole Passes Pared Down Budget for 2009;

One-time Payments for Town Employees, But No Raises

By Chuck Bingaman, Walpole Correspondent

            Walpole’s Town Meeting Saturday passed the Select Board’s proposed budget of  $3,267,656 that Select Board Chair Sheldon Sawyer said afterward was, counting all warrant articles, $297,000 less than last year’s budget.

            “We have done a lot of paring down,” Sawyer explained, “but we do not feel that we’ve lessened town services.”  In lieu of salary increases, each full time employee under the new budget will get a single additional payment of $350.

            One area of savings, around $12,000 budgeted but not spent for medical insurance for a new police department employee, might be spent for new bulletproof vests and radios for police officers.

            Sawyer also noted that a $69,498 budgeted income item for Shared Revenue Block Grants that come through the state of New Hampshire is now in question and will depend of future actions of the legislature.  He added that the Walpole share of the NH Meals and Room tax, that was $164,492 in 2008, had been subject to being stopped or cut for 2009 but that the NH legislature has now agreed to pay out similar amounts in 2009.

            In the meeting’s most contentious vote, the Selectmen’s effort to get voters to reverse a town policy set in 2001 to earmark the first $25,000 of Land Use Change Tax in any given year for the Conservation Commission’s use was defeated 116 to 37 in a paper ballot vote.  While that amount of such funds varies widely from year to year, it does give the Commission ready funds to pursue the transfer of land into conservation easements quickly when landowners decide to make that move.  The Selectmen were hoping to capture all Currrent Use Change taxes for a new fund they would control to pay for emergencies or for conservation projects to be voted on each year at the town meeting.

            In other decisions, the 160 citizens that participated in the meeting agreed as follows…

·        To raise and appropriate $110,000 to repair a serious headwall collapse in March Hill Road that has been waiting for nearly a year for repair money.

·        To raise and appropriate $10,000 to place in a reserve fund for the purchase of a new police vehicle n the future.

·        To raise and appropriate $5,500 for the town to participate in the Southwest Regional Planning Commission for 2009.  Such payment would include $4,000 annual dues and $1,500 for assistance with the updating of the town’s master plan. (The Selectmen opposed the expenditure!)

·        To raise and appropriate $1,500 to place in the Walpole Old Home Days Expendable Trust Fund for use in the next Old Home Days celebration tentatively set for June 2011.

·        To raise and appropriate $2,550 to pay the town’s portion of the American Red Cross Rural Ride program’s expansion to Walpole for 2009-2010.  While the total cost would be $5,670, $3,120 would be offset by United Way contributions and donations.  Organizer of the petition that put it on the warrant, Tara Sad, said that it would enable the setting up and operation of a system whereby volunteer drivers could be matched with people in need of transportation to doctors, hospital visits, groceries, and other destinations. The Red Cross would provide screening of volunteers, a toll-free dispatcher and liability insurance for volunteer drivers and their passengers.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Kathy Yardley, president of the Walpole Grange, presented Carol Christian with the Grange’s Community Citizen of the Year Recognition.

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