The Damariscotta Board of Selectmen and the Damariscotta Budget Committee met in joint session Jan. 25, the first joint meeting of the 2012-2013 budget process.
The boards didn’t take official action or delve deeply into policy issues, although they did briefly discuss a list of staff-recommended budget priorities.
Damariscotta Budget Committee members Justin Hagar and Scott Hilton expressed general support for funding a five-year capital improvement plan.
Both men expressed an aversion to raising taxes, but, in Hagar’s words, the town may need to “spend it today to save it tomorrow.”
The list also includes the possibility of “market-based pay adjustments” for municipal employees, adjustments to the snow removal contract to include two municipal properties and expenses related to the ongoing comprehensive plan update.
Damariscotta’s full-time, non-contract employees did not receive a pay increase last year.
Hagar said he wants to examine “the true cost” of joint public works operations with Newcastle. Last year, in the first year of the agreement establishing joint operations, “there was some moving of numbers that made it hard to gauge that,” Hagar said.
The towns must decide whether to renew the agreement this year. The Newcastle Board of Selectmen wants “a more permanent form” of the agreement, according to a list of that board’s 2012 goals.
Damariscotta Town Manager Matt Lutkus also addressed a question about contract negotiations with the Damariscotta Police Benevolent Association, the union representing Damariscotta Police Department employees.
“We’ve got to begin [contract negotiations] fairly quickly,” Lutkus said. “We might have to make some contingencies based on where we are in that contract process.”
“Our approach is going to be to keep it in the bounds of other changes for the compensation structure in other departments,” Lutkus said.
