This week the Budget Committee was to review the Highway Department budget but the figures were just received, in fairness to the Budget Committee to allow for thorough review the actual meeting review was postponed. Tentative plans are to review the Rescue budget this Wednesday and Highway/ Roads budget next Thursday.
Therefore, much of this weeks meeting was spent getting some clarifications on schedules, getting department figures for review, discussion of the pending conflict of interest policy, questions on prior budgets reviewed.
Observations:
- The Budget Committee is receiving the Budget Numbers far too late in the process. Part of the reason for scheduling things out last year was to accommodate allowing budgets to come in at a staggered pace, allowing plenty of time and spreading the work load. They are still coming in late.
- A Selectmen and the Town Accountant were unable to attend.
- The Budget Committee discovered the Dept. Head at the Transfer Station that should be receiving Salary wages equal to 26hr a week, is being paid additional hours equal to 29 and 32 per week on several occasions. Thus some weeks receiving 23% more in wages.
- The conflict of interest policy is being finalized by Selectmen and Legal and will be in place before the upcoming Budget Committee vote.
The video of the meeting may be downloaded directly here (right click “save as”) and is 149 mb and 40min long. The Audio only MP3 file may be downloaded here 18mb (right click “save as”). You may also view the 5 min preview below and watch the entire video online by clicking links below the preview. This link also takes you to the online video library. Official Minutes can be viewed here when available.
Watch 03-19-09 Lebanon Maine Budget Committee Meeting in News | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
2 responses so far ↓
1 Glen Stadig // Mar 20, 2009 at 11:27 am
I would like recommend to the Budget Committee that they draft a letter explaining their dissatisfaction with the Budget process, explaining the specific difficulties encountered and requesting corrective action be taken to prevent the troubles experienced from occurring again.
This should initiate a formal response by the Selectmen on how each of the problems will be addressed and thus stopping the repeated cycle or at minimum improving on it.
In speaking to members and observing the meetings I hear comments making it clear to me that this isn’t the first time many of the troubles have happened.
To have a Selectmen just say they are working on it, it should get better etc. doesn’t mean it will happen.There is greater commitment to action when things are written and documented.
The definition of insanity is “Doing the exact same thing over and over and over again and expecting different results”.
It’s time to stop the insanity and make a change…Budget Review is done every year and the process should be clear, concise and easily executed. If there are problems they should be identified, improved and eliminated if not they are doomed to repeat…certainly continuing to do things the way we always have in this case isn’t working.
2 chris gilpatrick // Mar 20, 2009 at 9:08 pm
why is it up to budget committee members to bring up discrepencies in expenses that our town ispaying for? one perfect example is our transfer station head . did our selectmen notice he’s getting paid more than his salary was suppossed to be? do our selectmen actually look at timeslips our department heads are turning in? now is he only gonna work 12 hours and get paid his salary of 24 hours ? since when does lebanon need to pay people salary instead of laborers pay,when that is what they’re suppossed to be? where will this end? why not pay the town hall employees salary and let them decide when they want to work ? people in lebanon are losing their houses and the budget committee has to oversee money spent inaproperly.who is watching the purse strings in the summer months when the committee doesn’t see the expenses? just a few questions for our residents to ponder as we near election time.
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