TURNER — Selectmen on Monday night reluctantly voted to close the Town Office on Friday afternoons to help offset a pending budget deficit.
Chairman Kurt Youland said the board would rather have closed the office Wednesday morning and not Friday, but Clerk Becky Allaire said that if hours were to be cut for staff, it would be nice to give something back to them by having the closing on a Friday.
The cut was needed to prevent an overage in that account for the year. The town can only exceed the budget for the General Assistance and winter roads accounts.
Selectmen also voted to recommend a fiscal 2016 town budget of $2.58 million, or $83,438 less than the recommendation of the Budget Committee. The budget proposal by selectmen continues the reduced hours for the Town Office for the next fiscal year.
Youland said selectmen wanted to give voters choices at the town meeting. If voters adopt the Budget Committee’s recommendation of $2.67 million, he said the Town Office would remain open Friday afternoons and there would be other spending differences.
The town budget for the current year, which does not include school spending, is $2.48 million.
Youland and fellow Selectmen Ralph Caldwell, Dick Keene, Dennis Richardson and Angelo Terreri agreed they were not trying to punish workers by taking away hours, but did so only to avoid an overdraft this year and to help keep taxes down in next year’s budget.
The four hours would gain the town approximately $5,600 of the $7,000 needed to close this year’s budget gap, according to Town Manager Kurt Schaub.
Selectmen said they were concerned about rising School Administrative District 52 and Rescue Department costs in the coming year and were looking for ways to reduce town expenses to control any tax increase for residents.
The good news is that the SAD 52 budget went from an 8.4 percent projected increase for 2016 to a 4.35 percent increase after directors looked more closely at the budget and made more cuts.
In other news, Mary Briggs requested a committee be formed to consider the future of town and other historic buildings. The board voted to approve such a committee and asked Briggs to be chairman. Keene volunteered to be on the committee.
The first job will be to make a list of such buildings and come back to the board for further guidance.
The warrant was accepted for the annual town meeting on April 11.
The board accepted a low bid of $9,500 by Walsh Engineering from Westbrook for permitting and design of the Tidswell Bridge project.
Selectmen were asked to write a letter in support of Bryant’s Airport Variety’s request for a retail liquor license. Spokesman Jason Bryant pointed out that the other agency stores with licenses were all close to the center of town. The board agreed to write such a letter.
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