Warrant Committee Tweaks Its Process Before Budget Meetings Begin
Budget Talks Set For Next Week
BAR HARBOR— The town’s budget cycle begins January 24 with a budget overview from Town Manager Kevin Sutherland and the school coming in to discuss its budget, too. The process should conclude by April 12.
The process will be a bit different for the town’s Warrant Committee and its subcommittees this year.
At the Warrant Committee’s Thursday night meeting, Chair Seth Libby and Sutherland explained potential changes that were all unanimously agreed to by the fourteen Warrant Committee members present.
Libby said that they were trying to make the process more efficient by adding a subcommittee called Public Infrastructure and changing the name of a subcommittee from Public Works Safety and Protection to just Public Safety.
The rules before Thursday night required four members in each subcommittee. This additional subcommittee increases the number of subcommittees to four. To accommodate this, the Warrant Committee members unanimously agreed to lower the number of subcommittee members required in each committee from four to three. A member can serve on more than one committee with the chair’s approval.
The members serving on each of the four subcommittees have not yet been finalized.
The process requires the Warrant Committee to make recommendations to the Town Council and then to the voters of Bar Harbor.
At the meeting Libby moved “that the Warrant Committee revise its approach to the budget review process with respect to developing it recommendations to the Town Council, whereby:
“Such recommendations do not require a formal vote by the respective subcommittees to be presented to the Warrant Committee for deliberation and vote.
“Any member may offer recommendations for deliberation and vote by the Warrant Committee; and
“Each subcommittee chair shall still act as the designated point of contact for questions concerning their respective sections of the budget, relay findings and answers to all Warrant Committee members for any questions received, and compile the list of member recommendations for presentation to the full Warrant Committee for deliberation and vote.”
The motion passed unanimously.
There were no public comments.
