Haverhill Town Meeting ballot voting on the Selectboard candidates and the continuation of the Town Manager form of government will take place from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesday, March 14, at the James Morrill Municipal Building. On Saturday, March 18, floor voting on town and school business including the operating budgets of both will take place beginning at 9 a.m. in the Haverhill Cooperative Middle School.
Haverhill
English, the town’s first manager, was hired in 1997, and Lacaillade was selected from a pool of 19 applicants to replace him last May.
Article 2 asks voters whether they “favor continuation of the town manager plan as now in force in this town.”
Because the petition article doesn’t specify an alternative to the town manager structure, a change could mean hiring a town administrator, or allowing the work to fall on some combination of existing staff, Selectboard members and contracted services.
There are three candidates competing for two open seats on the Selectboard. Selectmen Tom Friel, a retired professor, and Darwin Clogston, co-owner of a custom woodworking company, are facing a challenge from Fred Garafalo, a retired engineer who currently manages the transfer station in the nearby town of Lisbon.
Haverhill’s total proposed town budget is $4.34 million, down about 3.4 percent from the current year’s $4.5 million budget.
The reduction was made possible because the current year’s budget included $480,000 in one-time expenditures for road work and a fire truck.
The budget includes a new, $40,000 line item that would fund the town’s efforts to clean up hazardous and dilapidated properties in town.
Lacaillade said the town currently is in a legal battle with the owner of a single hazardous property, and the outcome is not certain.
“The money will be necessary if the owner does not handle the issue himself,” she said. “If he does not, we will be seeking a court order to raze the building and clean up the site. If he were to do it himself, we have several others that are on the list.”
One thing missing from this year’s budget is recycling pick-up services. Because fewer than 300 residents utilize the service, and the price was projected to increase from $24,700 to $32,000, the Selectboard is recommending the item be cut.
The municipal tax rate, currently $7.38 per $1,000 of assessed property value, is expected to decrease by “several cents,” but Lacaillade said she didn’t yet have concrete numbers.
The Haverhill Cooperative School District budget is going down by about $100,000, to $14.4 million, but a loss of non-tax revenues means the tax rate is projected to go up by 8.5 percent, from $20.74 to $22.50 per $1,000 of assessed property value.
Laurie Melanson, superintendent of School Administrative Unit 23, said the biggest impact on the budget came from a loss of about $604,000 in revenues from the state and from tuition payments.
If approved, the budget would result in a $440 increase on the school tax bill of a home valued at $250,000.
School voters also will be asked to approve a three-year negotiated contract with the Haverhill Cooperative Education Association. If approved, the contract will result in a net savings of about $37,000 during the upcoming 2017-18 school year, followed by increases of $139,000 and $167,000 over the following two years.
In addition to wages, the contract includes a new health insurance plan for district employees that has increased the district’s overall healthcare costs, Melanson said.
“We will have a less costly insurance, higher deductible plan, while still providing solid health benefits to employees,” Melanson said.
The budget includes a reduction of two classroom teaching positions, and the addition of a curriculum and enrichment position “to work with the schools on new curriculum in all areas as well as provide services for gifted students,” Melanson said.
The school warrant also includes a petition-led initiative that would cap the local education tax impact on Haverhill at 1 percent. If the warrant article is approved, future school boards would be prohibited from recommending budgets that would result in a tax increase of more than 1 percent.
The School Board has recommended that this article be rejected; in order to be implemented, it needs a three-fifths majority from those who vote by ballot at Town Meeting.
Maryanne Aldrich is running unopposed for re-election to her seat on the School Board, and Stephanie Chase is running unopposed for the seat currently occupied by Nicole Horne.
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.