Minutes
Holderness Budget Committee Meeting
12/22/08, 7:35 pm
Present: Beeson, Magnus, Rothschild, Webster, Johnson. Selectmen Currier and Peoples remained in attendance as public.
The budget committee met briefly following a joint session of the select board and budget committee. Discussion items included:
Total tax effort increase – All present agreed that in the current economic environment, a budget with an increase to taxpayers consistent with recent-year increases was neither prudent nor fair. Laurie Beeson suggested a target of no more than +2% overall. Bob Rothschild recommended a zero-increase budget. He suggested we could level-fund the total budget by reducing HCS spending enough to balance anticipated increases in county spending and the modest increases proposed in the town budget.
The committee agreed the target increase in total tax effort should be under 2%.
School budget – the PHRS allocation to Holderness is essentially flat, suggesting their total budget is down as the allocation formula would not likely give Holderness any differential advantage. The local school board is preparing budgets for 0% and -3% change, per agreement with the budget committee. The budget committee would like to see these, to help determine where we should end up in the 0% to +2% range for the total tax effort.
Kurt Magnus noted we can set up a simple spread-sheet calculator to look at different school and town budget levels to arrive at an acceptable total budget.
Town & School Meetings – Bob Rothschild asked if the town and school meetings could be combined, i.e. held back-to-back at the same location on the same night. The purpose for doing so would be to get a greater portion of the town engaged in discussions of both budgets. Walter Johnson was asked to investigate the feasibility of doing so.
Town Budget: P. Webster reported the Selectmen will be meeting on Monday, December 29th to finalize the proposed Town budget and will forward the final version to the BC members on or before January 5th.
Next session – Kurt Magnus suggested the evening of 1/5 for the next budget committee meeting.
Respectfully submitted:
L. Beeson, BC member
Unapproved Version
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