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Select Board Meeting ~ February 2, 2016

2016-02-02 · Select Board · 2:33:11 · watch on YouTube →

This was a budget workshop of the Select Board rather than a regular meeting, held to go through departmental budgets ahead of town meeting. Most of the evening went to the public works and roads operating budget, presented line by line by road commissioner Calvin Beaumier; the board trimmed the fuel, gravel, tree cutting and salt shed door lines and finished at about $1,052,841, an increase of roughly $23,587, or about 2.3 percent. A long discussion followed on how to pay for a replacement plow truck and for rebuilding Runaround Pond Road, covering the capital reserve, a $100,000-a-year addition to the tax levy for equipment, and bonding several roads together; the road commissioner was asked to bring costs and options for the priority roads back the following Tuesday. The board then took up the administration budget, including salaries as a raise pool, the code enforcement officer moving to full time, and a review of health insurance options that ended with the current plan being kept. Shorter items covered elections, the comprehensive plan, an RSU 5 withdrawal question heading for the ballot, donations, War Memorial Park and the telecommunications budget. The meeting adjourned at 8:35 p.m.

Who was there. The town's written minutes record these people present: Jeffrey Wakeman (Chairman), Sarah Hall (Vice Chairman), Mark Blake (Selectman), Michael Stewart (Selectman), Ruth Glaeser (AA/TA), Calvin Beaumier (Road Commissioner), Jill Toher (Secretary). Recorded absent: Joshua Libby. Names in this summary are checked against that list.

What was discussed

  1. 0:00
    Workshop opened; public works wage lines

    The chair called the workshop to order for budget review and started with public works and roads. Calvin Beaumier presented the operating budget broken into subcategories rather than lump sums, with the first six lines prepared by Ruth Glaeser. The wage lines carry a 2 percent increase plus the shift from 52 to 53 weeks, which the board worked out to roughly 4 percent; winter labour is budgeted separately from summer because, as the road commissioner described it, winter operations can be overspent by 25 percent without going back to the voters. Four hours a week of janitorial time was added, though the person doing it has been finishing in two to three.

  2. 5:01
    Bottom line, engineering line and fuel

    The budget as presented was about $40,000 above last year. The professional services line for engineering and surveying was increased so survey and design work on roads can be done before the town commits to a job rather than after. The gasoline and diesel line was questioned as being above what was actually spent; about $6,000 of heating fuel and propane had been moved out of it into utilities, and the board settled on $51,000 for line 33, leaving roughly an $8,000 buffer against a price rise.

  3. 10:08
    Equipment maintenance and rental equipment

    Equipment maintenance was set at $41,500, down from $48,000 last year, but with $5,000 for mechanic's tools and $1,500 for Freightliner diagnostics added in; the diagnostic system was described as about $800 to buy plus a renewal of around $600 a year, allowing any truck to be plugged in. Rental equipment was reduced by cutting roadside mowing from two weeks to one under a renegotiated contract with HP Fairfield, with $5,000 added back for rented heavy equipment. Several of the line numbers quoted for this section are garbled in the recording.

  4. 15:25
    Utilities restructured; Comcast and FairPoint

    Everything from electricity to telephone, television and internet had previously been coded to a single electricity line; it was broken out by item, with a $4,710 increase reflecting generator propane and heating oil moved in from the fuel account. The board discussed dropping or cutting back the Comcast television service, which is used mainly for local news, and whether internet and television could be combined with one provider.

  5. 15:25
    Salt shed door

    The rolling door at the back of the salt shed, used to load sand with the loader, was budgeted at $3,000, but a price obtained that day came in between $5,000 and $8,000 because the wood behind the track is rotten. The door is opened roughly once a year, and the board asked whether it belonged in capital rather than operating.

  6. 20:28
    Dumpster service moved; road name signs

    Dumpster service was moved to the facilities maintenance line. The signs line was adjusted for new regulations, and the board discussed who should pay for private road name signs; the practice elsewhere is for the applicant to pay up front into escrow at the time of a private road approval or building permit, but Durham's ordinance as it stands does not provide for that, and the board was not certain on the point. Replacement signs are the harder case, an example being a private road off the Auburn Pownal Road where new owners want a sign for 911 addressing. The board noted a sign must be in the public right of way for the town to be able to maintain it.

  7. 25:34
    Uniforms, safety equipment and training

    Crew members buy their own clothing and are reimbursed, with limits recalled as five pair of jeans, around $120 a pair, and $150 for boots, with t-shirts supplied by the town; the line was underspent last year because employees did not go out and buy the items. The board discussed buying the equipment up front instead but concluded there was not enough money in the line to do so, and left the line unchanged. Training was underspent as well, with about $1,800 spent and only one training taken, at around $260 each. The old single supplies line, which mixed custodial, office and construction materials, was split into administrative and operational supplies, and the road commissioner pointed out that last year's total had left out patch material entirely, even though patch alone came to about $20,000 in 2014 and $23,771 in 2015.

  8. 30:46
    Operational supplies, paving, surface treatment, tree cutting

    Operational supplies were requested at nearly $48,000 against about $31,318 spent, largely to stock 1,000 yards of gravel; the board cut that to 800 yards, about $2,600 off the line, bringing it to roughly $45,325. Culverts and drains were left level. The paving line was left alone pending a decision on whether it is used to keep good roads good or to help fund a reconstruction. Surface treatment was overspent last year because crack sealing was charged to it, which is now spelled out separately. Tree cutting under erosion control was cut to $4,000, still close to three times what was spent.

  9. 36:01
    Winter roads

    Sand and salt was reduced to about what was spent last winter, roughly $11,000 below the prior figure, with the road commissioner citing training on salt application and a move from straight salt to pre-treated salt. Liquid de-icers went up $2,000; he showed that pre-treating 1,600 tons of salt at 8 gallons per ton would come to $17,792 at the price quoted, and said the increase only covers magnesium at about $3,000 and salt brine. Application rates were given as about 800 pounds per centre line mile with straight salt against 300 to 400 pounds treated. Winter equipment maintenance was held at $12,000 against $10,000 spent, with more breakdowns expected as the trucks age, and weather technology on the trucks was separated from the meteorology service.

  10. 41:49
    Equipment capital: plow gear and a replacement truck

    Plow and wing equipment was quoted at $24,000, which the road commissioner said he expects to get reduced. He asked that one replacement truck be purchased this year because of breakdowns that tie up the mechanic during storms; the price figures spoken for the truck are garbled in the recording. It would go out to bid on the existing spec package used for the last two trucks, under a separate warrant article. The town has roughly $230,000 set aside in capital funds between last year and this year.

  11. 47:08
    Annual set-aside for trucks; townwide capital account

    Rather than bond, the suggestion was to add about $100,000 to the tax levy each year so truck purchases level out over a replacement cycle, using part of the existing reserve this year and raising the rest; the town runs seven trucks, described as becoming undependable once they pass ten years. The reserve exists because the department returned about $100,000 in each of its first two years, which the board did not expect to continue. The board then discussed replacing department-by-department capital accounts with a single townwide reserve, so priorities could be met wherever they arise and things like the municipal building roof would be covered; the counter-argument was that residents want to see what each department costs and that the total to be raised is the same either way. No conclusion was reached beyond agreeing it was worth looking at.

  12. 52:12
    Public works running total

    After the evening's changes the public works operating budget was calculated at about $1,055,841, and about $1,052,841 once the salt shed door was dropped, an increase of roughly $23,587 or about 2.3 percent. A draft capital plan and equipment replacement schedule was said to exist from when the department was set up, but was never finalised and has not been located.

  13. 52:12
    Runaround Pond Road split into two sections

    The road has been divided into two sections. Section one would fit within the existing budget; doing the whole road was put at roughly a million dollars if contracted out or about half a million done in house.

  14. 57:24
    In-house labour estimate and cement injection

    A crew of seven working a month was estimated at roughly 1,200 hours, about $24,000 in wages at the top of the town's scale plus insurance and overheads. As an alternative to full reconstruction the road commissioner raised cement or foam asphalt injection, in which the existing pavement is ground and cement is mixed in; contractors named as doing the work were Bennett's and one other whose name is garbled. He said it would need test borings and an engineer's opinion, and that Freeport had recently done it on Route 125.

  15. 1:02:53
    Track record for injection; cost against reserves

    Asked about longevity, the road commissioner said he could not find a comparable road that started in the condition Runaround Pond is in, so he had no basis to judge the method. On costs, section two from the culverts to the Pownal line was put at roughly $325,000 to $330,000 in house against $771,000 contracted, and section one from Route 9 to the culverts and bridge at about $176,854, with another $85,000 to $91,000 the following year for the surface coat. If $100,000 of reserve went to the truck, about $130,000 would be left. The board noted that doing both the truck and the road would add $300,000 to $400,000, about a 10 percent budget increase, and returned to whether to bond.

  16. 1:08:02
    Road inventory and priorities

    The town has about 40 miles of road; on a ten-year cycle roughly four miles should be rebuilt a year, and the discussion covered a little over two. Runaround Pond, Rabbit and Davis were named as the priorities, with Davis (?) argued for on the number of taxpayers it serves. Other roads mentioned as needing work included Brunswick, Bowie Hill, Plummers Mill and Old Brunswick Road. Many roads were said to still have gravel under them and could be ground and reshaped for another 15 to 20 years rather than rebuilt.

  17. 1:13:03
    A road plan, a bond, and the term

    The board said the roads get worse every year and that something has to go to town meeting this year, most likely with a bond because of the effect on taxpayers. Calvin Beaumier was asked to write up the top roads with costs and options, in house and contracted, in time for the following Tuesday so numbers would be ready for the budget committee. On term, he said he would not want to bond Runaround Pond alone for more than five years but would accept longer if several roads were bundled; Ruth Glaeser was asked to start looking at bond rates, which depend on both term and amount.

  18. 1:13:03
    Parking lot paving

    Paving the parking lot at the municipal building was put at about $23,000. The road commissioner said the base course has been down about ten years and is starting to come apart, so an overlay will not be enough much longer, and pointed to the fire station lot as one that was left too long. The board decided to get another year out of it.

  19. 1:18:12
    Bond structure, undrawn funds, and the paving line

    Bundling roads was expected to bring the price down by avoiding repeated mobilisation costs. Because each road takes a binder coat one year and a surface coat the next, the board favoured a single bond covering both years, but did not know whether interest accrues on money not yet drawn and set that as homework; splitting it into two bonds was said to risk the second one failing at town meeting after the first half of the work is done. The board also asked whether the $225,000 paving line in the operating budget could be spent on roads still good enough to preserve, including subdivision roads built about 15 years ago, with reconstruction handled as capital; the road commissioner said he is working out which roads are candidates and that ditching would be done alongside the paving.

  20. 1:23:13
    Budget committee scheduling and selectmen's pay

    The next public works session was set for Tuesday, with the fire department on Monday at 6. Budget committee dates were discussed around February vacation week, the holiday on the 15th and the need to get the town report to the printer by about March 3; it was noted that the budget committee, not the board, sets its own meeting dates. On selectmen's stipends, one member said a $50 increase per check was overdue after fifteen years but that it felt wrong for the board to recommend its own raise. Turning to staff salaries, shown at 2 percent plus the 53rd week on each line, the board agreed to use a raise pool again and decide individual amounts after town meeting if the pool passes.

  21. 1:28:27
    Code enforcement officer to full time

    The pool needs to carry more than 2 percent because the code enforcement officer's hours and benefits are going up; the board's view was that the move to full time should not carry a 2 percent raise on top of it. Ruth Glaeser explained that last year's raises were only calculated from town meeting forward rather than for a full year, and was asked to rework the salary lines on a full-year base and report back Monday or Tuesday. Public works carries its 2 percent in a single line; the road commissioner's own compensation was set aside for separate discussion, possibly in executive session and with Pownal.

  22. 1:28:27
    Health insurance options

    The board reviewed alternatives to the current POS 200 plan, principally a 1,000 and a 2,500 deductible plan, with premium comparisons prepared over nine months and six months. On the 1,000 plan the nine-month premium saving was put at almost $5,900.

  23. 1:33:56
    Flat funding of an HRA

    Under the higher-deductible plans the employee out-of-pocket maximum would rise from $1,200 to $2,000, and flat funding means the employer covers that $800 gap through an HRA, which is employer-held and pre-tax. The board noted the employee's premium saving should also be netted against the figure, and worked through per-employee amounts for single and family coverage.

  24. 1:38:59
    Whether the change saves anything

    The board asked why the first year costs money; the answer was that the HRA has to be funded from scratch, after which unused balances carry forward, with no guarantee the money is not used every year. Around half of such funds are said to go unused. At 50 percent funding the net saving was put at roughly $5,000 on the 1,000 plan, with the 2,500 plan possibly nearer $10,000 a year after the first year. The budget committee was said to be looking for a larger shift.

  25. 1:44:02
    Shifting cost to employees

    One member called the process accounting-heavy for a maximum saving of about $5,000 and said a change of that size was not worth putting employees through. Funding a percentage of the deductible rather than of the out-of-pocket maximum was raised as a more common private practice. Changing terms on people already hired was described as bad faith. The single-versus-family contribution split was discussed; the town covers three single and five family plans now, and would cover four and five with the code officer full time.

  26. 1:49:13
    Comparison towns; plan kept as it is

    A sheet comparing what surrounding towns pay showed a range from 100 percent to nothing, with Durham near the middle. The board concluded to leave the insurance as it is, noting that the third-party administrator's up-front and monthly per-employee fees are close to a direct offset of the premium savings given how few employees the town has. It asked whether the person who prepared the sheets, an MMA representative, could attend the first budget committee session. General insurance was unchanged, workers compensation up, and $1,000 was kept in computer hardware for printer replacement.

  27. 1:54:25
    Administration contracts and the publications line

    TRIO, the audit and the copier lease are contracts and were left alone. The publications line rose because three copies of the ordinances are required and new editions are due; the board asked whether the land use ordinance could be changed to require a single copy, noting the second public hearing on it was the following night and that a further hearing might be needed. Whether it could instead be amended from the floor at town meeting, or as part of the repeal-and-replace warrant article, was left with Ruth Glaeser (?) to check.

  28. 1:54:25
    Building and grounds lines

    Office supplies, selectmen's discretionary, janitorial salary with $400 of supplies, generator maintenance, telephone and propane were reviewed with little change; propane is not on contract and the board chose not to cut it for a few hundred dollars. Maintenance and repairs includes painting the board hopes to get done by the Boy Scouts. The $4,800 grounds line was absorbed into public works, town buildings electricity was down, street lights up slightly, and the new light at War Memorial Park sits in the recreation budget.

  29. 1:59:25
    Elections

    Election payroll rose because this year brings a caucus, town meeting, a June primary and a large November election, where last year had two small elections and a June primary whose cost was offset by the RSU. Medicare and FICA rise with it. Election expenses were cut by $2,000 by buying two voting booths. Legal expenses were kept despite being underspent, MMA dues are up, AVCOG was left level, and tax liens and discharges were dropped to $3,000.

  30. 2:04:33
    Code officer cost against permit revenue

    The full-time change accounts for roughly $20,000 of the administration increase in wages, insurance and payroll taxes. Against that, the board counted permit revenue increases of about $8,400 in building, $3,100 in electrical and $2,300 in plumbing, which they totalled as about $13,500; the arithmetic as recorded does not quite add up. The job description would change to town planner, including making recommendations on starting the comprehensive plan.

  31. 2:04:33
    Comprehensive plan

    A round figure of about $20,000 was cited to complete a comprehensive plan, with a suggestion of setting aside $10,000 this year, and the state was said to supply a packet of material free, with costs falling mainly on mapping. One member said the town is several years out of legal compliance and was concerned about the liability of putting it off again; another noted most towns in the state are in the same position. Options discussed were forming a committee after town meeting in April, in June or July, or by September, and recruiting members at the November election. No money was committed.

  32. 2:09:42
    RSU 5 withdrawal question

    A withdrawal question is heading for the ballot and the board discussed setting aside money for the legal negotiation; the figures spoken conflict, with both a figure of 15 and $50,000 mentioned, so the amount is not clear from the recording. A public hearing is required by statute a couple of weeks beforehand and the board has no information assembled to present. Freeport was said to have held its first vote without presenting financial analysis. The board asked to find out from the Department of Education what is actually required at the hearing, and to get four or five people together to work on it.

  33. 2:14:46
    Information wanted from the RSU

    The board wants the total cost of operating the Durham school, including labour and bond payments. Enrollment figures at DCS and for Durham students at Freeport High were said to vary widely from one account to another. Two open questions were named: the school bond, which the town remains liable for, and whether withdrawal would allow a return to school choice.

  34. 2:14:46
    Smaller budgets and donations

    A $2,200 telecommunications amount was struck from the appropriations line and moved. Animal control gained $300 in supplies for a Havahart trap; assessing, cemetery and conservation were unchanged, with a follow-up owed to the cemetery association on capital projects. Donations were cut back to $3,000 with the individual awards returned to $500 each, the organisations named including Seniors Plus, Life Flight and Safe Voices. The $1,650 spent on foundation repair at the Eureka was added to its capital projects line to reimburse the emergency fund. Jake Webb of the Durham Boosters will come in next week.

  35. 2:20:19
    Outing club request

    The outing club is an RSU organisation that receives a stipend for its leader but no other school funding; the request, understood at second hand, is to offset admission costs passed through to children on outings. The board questioned funding it given what the town pays the RSU, and suggested asking the town's representatives on the school board why the school cannot fund the roughly $700.

  36. 2:20:19
    War Memorial Park

    The gazebo needs repair, estimated by the code enforcement officer at between $3,000 and $5,000, while phase two of the Boy Scout project may be pushed to next year, since the scout involved has time left to complete it. One more flag pole is to go up, and the flag upkeep line may need to rise to cover the pole and its setting. The recreation fund is being drawn down faster than money is coming in, so less should be taken from it this year.

  37. 2:25:37
    Which flags, and the historic district

    The board discussed adding one pole or two, which would break the symmetry of the existing arrangement, and which flag or flags would go on them; the National Guard, Coast Guard and merchant marine were all raised. On the gazebo, a suggestion to lower it was set aside in favour of repairing it as it stands; it sits in the historic district, and any change to its design would have to go before the historic district commission. Its design was said to match photographs from over a hundred years ago, having been rescued from a ditch and rebuilt around the 1950s.

  38. 2:25:37
    Fire station security camera; funding breakdown requested

    A security camera for the fire station, an item Sarah Hall had raised and which sits in the fire department's capital budget, will instead be paid from the telecommunications budget. One member asked for a sheet showing, for the whole budget, how much comes out of designated funds and how much out of taxation, and the difference between the two.

  39. 2:31:04
    Telecommunications budget and adjournment

    The telecommunications budget covers replacing the small television with a flat screen of similar size, and a proposal to put wireless internet and a large screen in the Eureka so classes and talks could be held there. Franchise fees were about $47,000 including a $10,000 grant, with roughly $90,000 set aside; the intent is to spend less year to year so equipment can be replaced and upgraded. The board then adjourned.

What was decided

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.

Motions the minutes record

The town's own written account of what was decided, taken from select_board_minutes_2-2-20161.txt. It owes nothing to the recording or to a model: the clerk typed it, with the vote. Where the summary above claims a decision this list does not carry, the summary is the part to doubt.

Worth knowing

Elsewhere

← 2016-01-26 Select Board2016-02-08 Select Board →All meetings

Source & method

Town of Durham meeting recordings, YouTube auto-captions, and the town's written minutes
Captions cleaned into timestamped transcripts; topics and motions found by pattern matching; summaries written by a language model and required to cite the second each item begins. Every name attached to speech is checked against the attendance list in the minutes, and marked (?) where no record confirms it
https://www.youtube.com/@durhammaine/videos
Summary written by claude-opus-5. Attendance from select_board_minutes_2-2-20161.txt.
Data as of 25 August 2026 (the date of the newest recorded meeting in the index); retrieved 2 September 2026.