Tremont Select Board Holds Month of Consecutive Meetings for Budget Prep
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Edward Jones Financial Advisor: Elise N. Frank.
TREMONT—Halfway through a month of consecutive weekly meetings, the Tremont Select Board has been trying to rein in the town’s budget as much as possible while maintaining previous service levels.
The board began the process at its February 10 meeting when members asked Tremont Consolidated School Principal Jandrea True and Superintendent Mike Zboray if the board could shave some money from the school budget and bring it back. That reworked school budget will be presented to the select board on Monday, March 17.
The FY25/26 school budget was originally proposed as $5,365,303 which is a $561,002 or 11.68% increase over the FY24/25 budget of $4,804,301. That originally proposed increase equated to a proposed FY25/26 town appropriation of $4,642,315 which is a $475,588 or 11.41% increase over the FY24/25 town appropriation of $4,166,727.
At the select board’s meeting on Monday, March 3, Town Manager Jesse Dunbar presented the board with all of the proposed budget changes that were more than $5,000. Dunbar also gave a run-down of other budget increases, most of which affect all towns’ budgets, and where the town stood currently.
The Tremont Consolidated School Budget as initially proposed is up 11.4%.
The high school budget as proposed is up 5.1%.
The Hancock County Budget assessment is up 9.5%.
The Town of Tremont budget (at the beginning of the meeting) is up 11.3%.
All combined, this is an 8.3% increase for Tremont taxpayers.
Other than some short conversation, there were no suggested changes to the budget items of $5,000 or more that Dunbar presented. Some of those potential changes, such as the school budget, have not yet been before the board for a final round of scrutinization.
The next budget item was discussion regarding the amount of money going to the town’s surplus fund after deducting some previously encumbered money. After the town’s initial FY24 audit, the result was an addition of $204,352 to the surplus fund. Of that, $38,000 had been previously encumbered and $50,000 had been previously discussed as going to the town’s public safety building reserve.
The select board voted unanimously to encumber that $50,000 for the public safety building reserve which after the deduction of the previously encumbered $38,000 left a balance of just over $116,000.
The select board voted unanimously to apply the $116,000 to the municipal budget for taxpayer relief. This application brought the current proposed budget increase down from 11.3% to 6.7%.
At the March 10 select board meeting, the select board went over the proposed budget which had been updated after the March 3 meeting.
Between the March 3 meeting and the March 10 meeting, Dunbar had received a new proposed school budget which had dropped from an 11.4% increase to a 10.1% increase. The select board will be going over the new proposed school budget at its March 17 meeting. As the proposed school budget stands right now, it drops the town’s overall budget increase down to a 5.9% increase from the March 3 modified budget increase of 6.7%.
In addition to the new proposed school budget, the select board will also be going over the wharf, harbor, and Seal Cove budgets. The members will also be discussing a potential new truck purchase/lease for the fire department so the budget may still change a little in either direction at the March 17 meeting.
OTHER BUSINESS FOR MARCH 3 MEETING
ALEWIFE MANAGEMENT
During the March 3 meeting, the select board unanimously voted to “direct the town manager to advise the Maine Department of Marine Resources that the Tremont Select Board have voted that, for calendar year 2025, Seal Cove Brook shall be closed to recreational fishing for river herring and that the town will not lease its river herring rights.”
This formality, in conjunction with two articles that were passed at last year’s town meeting, one of which says that the town will manage river herring instead of DMR and the second of which says that the town will manage any lease, allow the town to retain the rights of managing river herring which are alewives and blueback herring.
SOUTHWEST HARBOR AND TREMONT AMBULANCE SERVICE PLANNING COMMITTEE
The select board still needed to fill one of two seats available on the EMS Planning Committee for an ambulance service representative and one seat for an at-large community representative.
For the ambulance service representative, the ambulance service had made three recommendations, Andy Cline, Kristin Hutchins, and Bonnie Norwood. There are actually two ambulance service representative seats on the planning committee, but one must be chosen by the Southwest Harbor Select Board.
The Tremont Select Board unanimously voted to fill its ambulance service representative seat with Andy Cline.
For the at-large community representative the select board had received two applications of interest, one from Ben Harper and one from Larry Albee.
The select board unanimously voted to fill the at-large community representative seat with Ben Harper.
DEDICATION OF AND IN MEMORIAMS FOR ANNUAL TOWN REPORT
The select board unanimously voted to dedicate this year’s annual town report to long-time fire service member and Tremont Volunteer Fire Department Captain Dudley Poirier who has recently retired from the fire service.
From the Tremont Volunteer Fire Department’s Facebook page;
“Tremont Volunteer Fire Department Captain Dudley Poirier has submitted his letter of retirement after 58 years of dedication to the volunteer fire service.
“Dudley started his volunteer career at Bar Harbor Fire Department as a spitfire of a young man. His stay at BHFD lasted 30 years while he maintained a full-time job with the Bar Harbor Water Deptartment and later on working at the MDI Housing Authority.
“Captain Poirier joined the Tremont Volunteer Fire Department shortly after he and his wife Jenny built and moved into their new home in Bernard, 25 years ago. Over the 25-year stint at TFD, Dudley has been a dedicated firefighter, engineer, and tanker operator. He has worked under three fire chiefs since 1999, climbing to the rank of captain after displaying great leadership qualities. Over this time, he has shared not only his knowledge of the fire service but also the importance of showing compassion and patience with everyone he encountered.
“We certainly can’t understate his ability to be witty, prankish, and honestly blunt too.
“Captain Dudley somehow has managed to balance his time as an active member all while between being self-employed caretaker/carpenter, producing 1000’s of loads of bundled firewood, enjoying camping trips, and his one true passion of bass fishing alongside of his wife. We hope now that he has some extra time on his hands, he can finally catch more fish than she can.
“Plans for a retirement party will be shared once arrangements have been made.”
The select board also voted unanimously to include two memoriams in the annual town report, one for long time resident Theresa Hopkins and one for long time resident Jimmy Thurston.
OTHER BUSINESS FOR MARCH 10 MEETING
PUBLIC WORKS GARAGE IMPROVEMENTS
The select board unanimously approved the usage of FEMA reimbursement funds that were given to the town to reimburse for labor hours and machine hours for the public works department relating to last year’s January storms. The reimbursement amount was $7,500.
Dunbar said that the light in the public works garage is totally insufficient for working on vehicles and other machinery and tools and proposed a lighting upgrade that would include more lights and switching over to LED lighting.
Dunbar also said that the pavement that abuts the concrete apron in front of the public works garage has sunk due to water flow. To remedy this, he is proposing a trench drain where the concrete and pavement meet with removable grates so that the drain can be periodically cleaned of residue, sand and silt, too improve water flow off the apron.
The $7,500 will be used to make these upgrades to the public works garage.
The next select board meeting date will be this coming Monday, March 17 to finalize the budget.
The next scheduled meeting after that is for Monday, March 24 and at that meeting the select board will be going over the actual proposed budget warrants for annual town meeting.
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