SALEM — Selectmen started the budgeting season with a look at what interim Town Manager Henry LaBranche called the "worst case scenario" — a 52-cent increase in the tax rate.
LaBranche presented a preliminary budget — which he said he had already trimmed a bit — but left it up to selectmen to make the tough decisions.
"I'm not going to be here to manage the outcome of these decisions," he said. "I think it's incumbent on you folks to make the policy decisions."
And those could include program reductions and elimination, cutting personnel, or passing on the cost to taxpayers.
LaBranche said he would need to find an extra $349,663 before the basic, preliminary operating budget rolled out last night could be level-funded. But that does not include warrant articles that the town has planned to introduce in various capital plans, mostly for roads and bridges, totalling $12.8 million. If all warrant articles passed, LaBranche said it would take $2.4 million to level-fund the budget.
That could mean a tax rate increase of 9.91 percent, or 52 cents. Last year, taxes rose by 37 cents after warrant articles. The proposed operating budget rose by 5.44 percent to $35.1 million.
"The chairman tells me this is the same place you were at a year ago," LaBranche said, before cuts were made.
Town officials and department heads set out with a goal of a level-funded budget, LaBranche said. But some costs did arise — including those passed on by the state. The town lost $371,000 in shared revenue, and rooms and meals tax revenues were reduced by $137,000.
The cost of health and dental insurance is expected to rise, retirement costs rose, the cost of oil and gas was up, and the town will make its first payment for a 2010 bridge bond. Budgets for health and human services rose, with a new furnace needed and funding for outside social service agencies restored after voters returned it to last year's budget at deliberative session.
The town's capital budget rose with lease payments for police and public works vehicles approved last year, a requested fire vehicle, and two public works vehicles.
"You have a significant challenge ahead of you," LaBranche said.
He said selectmen could probably find some sums of money in the budget to trim, but they could need to go further in trimming the budget or proposed projects.
"Is it roads and bridges, or people?" he asked. "Or both?"
Selectmen will meet again today at 6 p.m. — this time to interview seven candidates to fill the vacated selectman seat of Arthur Barnes. So far, Stephen Campbell, Bernard Campbell, Robert Campbell, Ron Belanger, Susan Covey, Barry Pietrantonio and Brian Keaveny, who turned in an application yesterday, are candidates for the post.
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