After several years operating on a default budget, the town of Epsom will see a 22 percent increase in the coming year’s proposed town budget, the majority of that increase devoted to road improvements town officials say have been put off for too long.

“It’s an accumulated need,” said Harvey Harkness, chairman of the Epsom Budget Committee, of the mounting road deterioration in town over the past several years, exacerbated by the flooding two years in a row.

The calculated default budget for 2008-09 is $2,469,881, almost $400,000 less than the proposed. If passed, it alone would raise the tax rate 28 cents.

This time around, Harkness said, was a bad year to request departmental increases due to the sliding economy and the need to devote significant funding to roads.

“We had a very difficult time on the budget and we’re faced with this accumulating deficit,” Harkness said about the needed road repairs.

“We felt the people of the town needed to see what our accumulating needs are amounting to. As each year goes by, it’s going to get worse,” Harkness said about getting out of the default budget cycle.

He expects that residents at the deliberative session of Town Meeting on Saturday, Feb. 2, will impose cuts.

Roads
Harkness said residents have been complaining about the roads being in disrepair for years, and wanted a long-term plan from the Highway Department which came in the fall as part of a capital improvements plan.

The default budget kept needed investments in infrastructure from happening during the past years, Harkness said.

The proposed town operating budget, without warrant articles, is $2,867,220, down about $32,603 from the selectmen’s initial proposal to the Budget Committee. Adopting this budget, without warrant articles, would add $1.15 per $1,000 of assessed value to the tax rate.

A warrant article bearing recommendations from the Board of Selectmen and Budget Committee asking for $63,000 to pave Epsom’s section of New Orchard Road, which goes into Pittsfield, would cause a 14 cent per $1,000 increase on tax bills.

“The road was not reconstructed and brought up to the proper standard for a road, but there was some work done on it in order to enable it to carry traffic,” Harkness said.

A Highway Department warrant article asks to enter into an agreement to purchase the backhoe and loading truck they currently rent. The total cost would be $70,398, spread out over four years in yearly payments of $17,600, which would come out of the Highway Department’s capital reserve fund.

Harkness said the Budget Committee members didn’t go for it because they felt a better machine could be purchased down the road, and they wanted more money to go into the capital reserve fund for unforeseen road expenditures.

Policy changes The Budget Committee cut $15,000 off the selectmen’s request for legal fees in 2008- 09, bringing the final number to $25,001.

The fund is for all legal expenditures to the town, including consultations and lawsuits against it. Currently, the town has several pending.

“We felt that it would be more prudent to go with a lower figure,” Harkness said, adding there had been a cost overrun on legal fees this year.

According to the line item, $20,001 was allocated for such legal expenses this year and $54,353 was actually spent.

A petitioned warrant article asks voters to approve a policy preventing any selectman from submitting an invoice for legal counsel to the town for payment unless the entire board votes to approve such a meeting or discussion first.

The last warrant article on the ballot, also petitioned, asks for a minimum of two bids from independent contractors for any work amounting to more than $2,000. The Board of Selectmen would decide which bid to go with in a public meeting should the article pass.

Departments
The majority of department increases selectmen OK’d also got approval from the Budget Committee.

Town officials said the increases in department budgets were more or less in line with what they should be, and just seemed more because of the current default budget.

The proposed Police Department budget is up 16 percent from its default number this year to $520,295. The Fire Department’s budget is up $27,235 from the current year’s default appropriation. Emergency Management saw no change from last year.

Both the fire and police chiefs expressed concern about salaries and possibly running over on their 2007 budgets.

“I can’t get through 2007 on a 2003 budget,” Fire Chief Stuart Yeaton said at a selectman’s meeting in September, citing rising gas prices and large expenses in their emergency response line that put them behind.

Police Chief Wayne Preve said he is worried about the salaries his officers get, which are below average and may encourage them to go elsewhere.