Sanbornton using its rainy day fund to pay for ongoing expenses

To The Daily Sun,

To me the unassigned fund balance that Sanbornton has is like a savings account for the town to basically use when an unexpected emergency arises. Around November 2017, after the selectmen voted to offset the tax rate and assign an overlay, the unassigned fund balance, I believe, was about $1,569,486. My understanding of the state rules for using these funds is that the selectmen have the authority, without the taxpayers approval, to use a certain percentage of these funds to offset an increase in the tax rate if they choose to.

All other uses of these funds by the town have to be voted on and approved by the taxpayers. I don't mind the selectmen using $93,000 of those funds to stabilize the tax rate in 2018 but I am concerned about the number of articles at the town meeting that required the use of the unassigned fund balance when they were approved at the Town Meeting, which totaled $523,041. The following contributed to that total: $93,000 to stabilize tax rate, and Article #2, $50,000 for employee compensation, Article #4, $10,000, Article #9, $315,000, and Article #12, $55,000.

That's a total of $523,000 used from the unfunded balance for the 2018 budget we voted on. Wow, most of that money is supposed to be used for town emergency situations. Although these articles noted the following "money to come from unassigned fund balance with no amount to be raised by taxes" it is still mostly your tax dollars that have made up this fund.

Just something to think about!

Bill Whalen

Sanbornton