David Strang: Gilmanton’s town budget is out of control

To The Daily Sun,

The current Gilmanton Selectboard is proposing an operating budget that is 9.5% higher than last year’s. When inflation is running at 7%, a 40-year high, why is the selectboard raising taxes at all? In addition to this increase asked for in Warrant Article 3, Articles 5-12 will add another $666,000 of spending for a total increase of 25% over the 2021 budget. Now you know why Gilmanton’s budget has doubled in just eight years, during a time when the population has only increased by about 10%. This out-of-control spending must stop now.

To make matters worse, the total cost of Article 5 is hidden from the voters at the booth. Your ballot on election day will state a tax impact of $0.207 per thousand, but that is only for the last six months of 2022. The real cost for this one item is double that or almost $100 per year for the average home in Gilmanton. You would only know this if you were at the Feb. 5, deliberative session or picked up the Voter’s Guide at the Academy Building. Your ballot on March 8, will not have this critical piece of information in order for you to make an informed choice. And next year, this doubled cost will be buried in the operating budget.

I called out the selectboard for disguising this cost at their Feb. 7, meeting. Our town administrator claimed they could not put the real cost on the ballot as this would be “overtaxation.” Informing the citizens of the true cost of any item is not overtaxation. She then claimed the town attorney told them they could only put the (partial) 2022 cost on the ballot. I truly doubt there is any law that prevents you the citizens from knowing the real cost of any ballot item.

I pledge to change that if you elect me as Gilmanton Selectperson. We need a board that realizes the crushing cost of inflation that is coming our way. It may be 7% now, but it will be much higher in the coming months and year. We should be cutting taxes in this time. We should not be giving money to Mid-State Health of Plymouth, a private medical practice, not even in Belknap County, as the selectboard have asked us to do in Warrant Article 28. Paying the expenses of any private business, in this case the salaries of doctors and nurses, should never be the job of town government. If you elect me selectperson, I pledge to fight to stop this fiscal abuse and to keep your taxes low.

David Strang

Gilmanton