Individual selectmen to have opportunity to set 2007 budget goal

When the Board of Selectmen meets next, in workshop session, on Monday, Sept. 18 each of the five members will be given five minutes to outline their general goals for building the 2007 town budget. Each will also be expected to suggest a target figure — in terms of a percentage increase, using the 2006 budget as a baseline — for Town Manager Carol Granfield to shoot for.

Chairman Peter Miller said on Monday night that Granfield has requested the guidance in preparation for culling through the spending requests that will come to her from the various town department heads. Last year, Miller said, Granfield was given requests that would have added up to a 18-percent increase in the operating budget. She pared that total down to just under a 14-percent increase before a formal spending plan hit the selectmen's agenda.

When all was said and done, the selectmen passed a budget that was 8.6-percent higher than the previous year.

Miller recalled, however, the previous board — he and Frank Michel are the only holdovers — deferred some capital spending requests to help get the percentage in increase well below the one submitted by Granfield and inferred that strategy might not be so easy to follow this year.

Miller has said he expects the budget development process to be more arduous this year because the differences in guiding philosophies are perhaps greater on the current board that was the case in recent years. Nonetheless, on Monday he predicted a result the town would be proud of.

Miller jokingly referred to differences in prospective that he expects to have with Colette Worsman, who is probably the most fiscally conservative person on the board, but noted that each member will bring intellect and experience to the process.

Though workshop sessions of the board do not normally include a formal period when comments are solicited from the audience, Miller said he will include three such pauses on the agenda for the meeting n the 18th. The meeting, due to start at 4 p.m., will be held at the Community Center.

Miller also informed his colleagues that the board's Sept. 25 meeting — also to be held in workshop format — will include a goal-setting session. Prior to the meeting, each member is expected to provide Granfield with a list of their top 10 goals for the board to accomplish and that information will be used as the catalyst for discussion. The meeting on the 25th will start at 5 p.m.