Allenstown voters will consider accepting a proposed $5.3 million town operating budget on the warrant March 10. Exactly 100 registered voters who attended the Jan. 31 deliberative session of Town Meeting rejected a proposed amendment that would have cut the bottom line of that budget by $250,000.

This budget represents an approximate 4 percent increase over the current year’s budget. Board of Selectmen Chairman Thomas Gilligan reminded the group that although times are tough, the departments still need adequate funding to function properly.

“What some people forget at these meetings is that we are all taxpayers, too,” Gilligan said. “We know it hurts.”

The town warrant this year will include 21 other articles as well as the proposed operating budget, including a proposal to finance $1.55 million in improvements for the wastewater treatment facility over a 10-year period. The cost of this project, if approved, would be equally shared with the town of Pembroke.

School
Later that afternoon, about twice as many residents participated in the school district’s deliberative session, several of whom praised school administrators for proposing a 2009-10 operating budget only $14,488 more than the default budget.

A proposed amendment to cut the bottom line of that proposed operating budget by another $150,000 failed.

The proposed budget, as it will appear on the ballot, represents a 1.5 percent increase over the current year’s approved budget.

“We’ve tried to be fiscally responsible to the taxpayers,” said Tom Irzyk, chairman of the School Board.

Only one article on the proposed warrant was amended during the session. Attendees voted in favor of increasing a deposit to the district’s building maintenance fund from $10,000 to $25,000 from any operating budget surplus that may exist at the end of the current school year.