Town, school budgets OK’d in West Bath

WEST BATH

Residents had lengthy conversations about a couple of items during the three-hour West Bath town meeting on Tuesday night — mostly about a new investment fund and sand and salt shed, but ultimately approved a $4.69 million municipal budget and $3.37 million school budget.

The $4,692,974 municipal budget for 2016-17 is a $139,000 or 3 percent increase over the current budget.

The $3,368,627 school budget for 2016- 17 represents a $20,000 increase from the current fiscal year. The portion raised through taxes — $2.9 million — went up $19,000. Town Administrator Adam Garland said the West Bath School Administrative Unit budget actually came in $70,000 below the current spending plan. However, school and town officials proposed a budget with a $20,000 increase because they found $90,000 in infrastructure needs at West Bath School. This included a new roof that Garland said hadn’t been addressed by Regional School Unit 1 before the town withdrew from the RSU. This work should mark the end of the transition, Garland said.

Despite these increases, and a slight projected increase in its Sagadahoc County assessment, it appears the town’s tax rate will stay the same due to an increase in valuation, Garland said. The current tax rate is $10.40 per $1,000 of assessed value.

There was a lot of discussion and several questions surrounding the proposed investment fund, which was eventually approved. As a result, $775,000 — the remaining amount of settlement money the town received from Bath and RSU 1 in late 2014 as a result of cost sharing litigation — will be moved into a new long-term capital improvement fund reserve account.

Garland said the town received a total of $1.25 million in that settlement. At town meeting last year, the decision was made to put $147,000 into a capital fund for West Bath School. Another $53,000 was placed in a school startup fund for costs associated with West Bath starting up its own school system. The remaining $775,000 was set aside to explore investment opportunities. It has set in a bank account while an investment committee — made up of Robert Weir, Paul Coombs and Steve Kalisz serving as chairman — researched investment opportunities. Given how volatile and unpredictable the markets are right now, they felt the best option is to create a long-term capital investment fund.

The account will be used to pay for a sand and salt shed and other infrastructure and the purchase of a fire truck, according to Garland.

Starting next year, there will be an article on the warrant to allow the town to start replenishing the account annually at town meeting, likely at a level of $50,000 raised through taxation.

Garland said over the course of 20 years, by funding its own projects the town would be saving a significant amount of money by not paying interest from borrowing and bonding for the projects.

Based on a likely scenario of spending $100,000 for an infrastructure need like a septic system replacement at the school, purchase of a fire truck in five or six years and the sand and salt building project, over 20 years the town could earn a projected $76,280 to $228,840 in interest and save $179,512 in finance charges.

Voters also approved the proposed sand and salt building, which comes with a $370,000 price tag but will be funded through the new investment fund instead of tax money. It will have a 2,500 cubic yard capacity and replace the current aging structure which has only an approximately 600 cubic yard capacity.

Voters also appropriated the money needed to pave the entire Hill Road this year.

Six ordinance changes were approved, Garland said. The amendments clarified what qualifies as an in-law apartment, provides guidance for how the town will handle solar energy systems, communications towers and the last amendment changed a piece of residential zoned land to commercially zoned on New Meadows Road.

dmoore@timesrecord.com

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