Select Board Meeting ~ February 11, 2025

2025-02-11 · Select Board · 2:23:53 · watch on YouTube →

The Select Board met at the fire station on February 11, 2025 to finish the 18-month budget and to work through draft ordinance amendments before the warrant language is needed. The board reordered the agenda to take the budget first, reviewed revised revenue estimates presented by Jerry, and spent most of the meeting on how much fund balance to use and what percentage increase to assume for the school assessment. After a phone call to Mark, who checked the arithmetic, the board voted to raise the school line to an 18-month total of about $10.04 million and to increase budgeted fund balance use by roughly $287,000, keeping a 3.5 percent target tax increase. On ordinances the board accepted the resource protection amendments as amended, and tabled both the battery energy storage standards and the contract zoning amendment to February 25 so the town attorney can answer outstanding questions. The board also approved two personal property tax abatements, a $5 disposition permit fee increase, and moved the March 11 meeting to March 4.

No written minutes could be matched to this meeting. The transcript records that the speaker changed but never who was speaking, so any name attached to a statement below is inferred from context and is marked (?).

What was discussed

1. 5:11
   Call to order and agenda order

   The chair called the meeting to order at the fire station at 6:30 p.m. with a quorum. A board member asked which items were the priority given the length of the agenda; the chair said ordinance language has to be ready after the February 25 meeting because warrant language must be available 14 days before the planning board's public hearing, which the planning board plans for March 12. The board moved item D, the budget, ahead of item A.

2. 5:11
   Public comment

   No one from the public was present and the chair said no written comment had been submitted.

3. 5:11
   Revised revenue estimates

   Jerry (?) presented the updated budget. The grant matching fund transfer was reduced to $3,152, the amount needed to bring the grant matching fund to $30,000, and transfers out were adjusted accordingly.

4. 10:15
   Line-by-line revenue changes from the accountant

   State revenue sharing was raised to $925,000 on the state economist's projections, cable franchise fees were set at $51,000, and the homestead exemption estimate was lowered to 260. Ambulance fees were raised to about $175,000 (the transcript gives both 175,000 and a computed 176,177) and interest income was raised from $100,000 to $200,000. Decreases were made to other excise tax ($6,000), code enforcement ($65,000) and interest on property tax ($52,000).

5. 16:39
   Fund balance policy

   The chair said the fund balance should be used to smooth tax increases and argued for a flat target near 3.5 percent rather than a larger draw now, putting the current pace at about five years of use before the balance reaches the level needed for cash flow. Other members said economic conditions were hard and a larger draw with a lower rate was not unreasonable; Joe (?) said he would rather burn it slowly and leave the rate at 3.5 percent.

6. 27:59
   School assessment estimate

   The budget as drafted assumed a 6.8 percent increase in the education line, but the superintendent's proposed budget showed 7.62 percent, with a Durham contribution of $6,993,155 for one year. Heather (?) said she could not settle a fund balance number without knowing which education figure was being used, and members noted the school vote is not until June, after the April town meeting.

7. 38:38
   Mark's written advice on budgeted fund balance use

   The board read from an email from Mark saying the RSU budget is the one item that could significantly affect the target tax increase, and recommending a budgeted use of fund balance for FY26 of over $300,000, somewhere between $400,000 and $600,000. Members discussed that unused fund balance rolls back in at year end, as happened last year.

8. 54:52
   Budget committee report

   The chair reported the budget committee made no recommendations at its meeting the previous night because the revenue estimates had been changed after their review. They asked for a clean copy of the budget for their next meeting and will make recommendations on the warrant language after it is issued at the end of the month. Some members had voiced a 2.5 percent target tax increase.

9. 59:58
   Phone call with Mark

   Mark was reached by phone while driving and the board walked him through its arithmetic: the new school figure of $6.99 million plus half of the 2024 actual of $3.04 million, less the current estimate of $9,750,000, giving a difference of $287,213. He said the number did not seem off to him and that over 18 months he would not be particularly worried about it.

10. 1:05:28
    Budget vote and closing remarks

    The board voted on the motion to raise the school line and the fund balance use, and the chair said the select board budget was complete subject to a further look after the next school board meeting. Members said the budget maintains existing service levels and adds HR, legal and IT security support, and defended the text notification service as arising from the flooding when road closures could not be communicated.

11. 1:11:03
    Draft amendments: resource protection

    The amendment replaces the 2018 natural resource co-occurrence supplemental map with the 2024 map after a survey by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife found a rare turtle occurrence no longer present. The six-or-more rating language stays in the ordinance; only the map date changes. The amendment also gives buffered area back to house lots that were made non-compliant when the district was redrawn.

12. 1:21:45
    Draft battery energy storage system standards

    The draft sets three tiers: tier one under half a megawatt, tier two between half a megawatt and one megawatt, and tier three above that, with tier three requiring site plan review and a contract zoning agreement. The chair objected to the line saying tier three minimum requirements shall not be reduced or made less restrictive by contract zoning, and Joe (?) argued the noise limits should stay fixed. A suggestion to add "absent good cause" to that sentence was noted to come back to. Heather (?) raised that the draft references contract zoning, so if contract zoning does not pass there could be no tier three system, and the board decided to put that question to the attorney.

13. 1:49:07
    Draft contract zoning amendment and solar threshold

    The chair said the draft is unchanged from what the board sent to the planning board and that no public comment was submitted. The board discussed publishing the draft ordinances on the website and texting notice ahead of the March 12 public hearing. Heather (?) raised the solar provision, which requires contract zoning for projects with a surface area greater than 175,000 square feet; the chair said the planning board had raised the threshold from 10 acres to 20 acres and that he needed to check the math before February 25.

14. 1:54:09
    Rescheduling the March 11 meeting

    The chair moved to move the March 11 meeting to March 4 so that town report material approved that night can be printed in time. One member said they would not be present on the new date and was comfortable with the board proceeding.

15. 1:54:09
    Personal property tax abatements

    Jerry (?) explained that two personal property tax accounts will never be collected because the businesses no longer exist, and that Title 36 section 841 allows the board to abate them. The amounts are $332.92 and $17.68, one going back as far as 2008, and writing them off removes them from the system rather than taking money out of the budget.

16. 1:59:46
    Disposition permit fee

    Jerry (?) said the state raised the cost of dispositions by $5 as of February 1, 2025, so the town fee schedule has to go up by $5 from its current $20. The board also asked that the full fee schedule return to the agenda once the budget is finished.

17. 1:59:46
    Town manager report

    Jerry (?) reported the new doors are installed at the Eureka Center and the fire station, a generator is installed at the town office, and the 2024 audit is under way with the auditors in the town office. He devoted the rest of the report to town staff, naming public works through the winter storms, the fire department, and the town office.

18. 2:10:34
    Board member reports

    The chair and Deb (?) reported on a GPCOG circle of chairs session on property tax, which supplied regional comparison data. Deb (?) reported the solid waste committee meeting was cancelled for a conflict with the budget committee, that it will move to the second Monday of each month, and that a new chair will be selected after the chair resigned but stayed on the committee; she also asked that the 10-year capital plan be posted on the website. Heather (?) described a resident's complaint that the access at Runaround Pond was plowed shut, which she raised with the road commissioner and which turned out to be a new on-call driver's mistake that the public works director addressed immediately.

19. 2:21:33
    Consent agenda, upcoming meetings and executive session

    The board took up the January 28, 2025 minutes and the February 11 accounts payable warrant, then listed upcoming meetings: historic district commission February 13 at the Eureka Center at 6:00, budget committee February 24 at the fire station at 6:30, and select board February 25 at the fire station at 6:30. The board then moved to go into executive session under 605A on a personnel matter, the appointment application for a committee, and the recording ends as they go off camera.

What was decided

• 5:11
  Move item D, the budget, ahead of item A on the agendapassed
• 1:05:28
  Increase the school line to an 18-month total of about $10.04 million and increase budgeted use of fund balance by about $287,000, holding a 3.5 percent target tax increase (the transcript gives the increase as both $287,213 and $287,100, and the annualized fund balance use as roughly $504,867)passed
• 1:16:24
  Accept the resource protection ordinance amendments as amended; moved by Josh, seconded by Joepassed
• 1:43:49
  Table the revision to the draft battery energy storage system standards until the February 25, 2025 meeting so the town attorney can answer the contract zoning question; moved by the chairtabled
• 1:54:09
  Table the contract zoning amendment until February 25. The chair called for the vote but the transcript does not record the result plainlyoutcome unclear
• 1:54:09
  Reschedule the March 11 meeting to March 4passed
• 1:59:46
  Accept the personal property tax abatements as presented, $332.92 and $17.68passed
• 1:59:46
  Update the fee schedule to raise the disposition permit fee by $5passed
• 2:21:33
  Approve the minutes of January 28, 2025 as writtenpassed
• 2:21:33
  Sign and approve the accounts payable warrant for February 11, 2025. The transcript of the vote is cut off mid-phraseoutcome unclear
• 2:21:33
  Go into executive session under 605A on a personnel matter. The recording ends during the voteoutcome unclear

An outcome reads "unclear" where the recording does not state it plainly. The recogniser drops short words, and "the motion does not carry" is one missing word from its opposite.

Worth knowing

• 27:59
  The school's own proposed budget came in at a 7.62 percent increase against the 6.8 percent the town had budgeted, a difference of about $287,000 over the 18 months. The board chose to budget for the higher figure and cover it from fund balance rather than raise the tax levy after town meeting, because the school budget is not voted until June.
• 38:38
  Mark advised a budgeted use of fund balance for FY26 of over $300,000 and between $400,000 and $600,000. After the vote the annualized figure is roughly $504,867, against $470,000 before the change.
• 1:26:59
  The board split on the battery storage standards. The chair wanted to strike the line saying tier three minimum requirements cannot be reduced by a contract zoning agreement, arguing the town needs negotiating room and the voters decide in the end; Joe opposed it on noise grounds. A compromise of adding "absent good cause" was raised and the item was tabled to February 25.
• 2:10:34
  GPCOG data presented to the board put Durham's median property tax bill in 2022 at $3,049, or 2.93 percent of a median income household's wages, against about $7,500 in Falmouth and about $5,200 in Freeport.

Motion language found in the transcript

Located by pattern matching, with no model involved: "I move that", "I'll second", "all those in favour". This is an independent check on the summary above: 10 passages of motion language, against 11 decisions summarised.

Elsewhere

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