By Muriel Bristol | December 4, 2018
The Milton Board of Selectmen (BOS) have posted their agenda for a joint BOS-Budget Committee meeting to be held Wednesday, December 5, 2018.
The BOS intend to begin their joint BOS-BC meeting at approximately (*) 6:00 PM.
Its agenda is described in the single sentence:
Be advised the Budget Committee & Board of Selectmen will conduct a joint meeting to discuss the Town Budget.
Two follow-on meetings are scheduled for Tuesday, December 11, and Tuesday, December 18, also at 6:00 PM.
A series of three joint meetings held in November of last year ran through departmental budgets. The first meeting, that of November 8, 2017, reviewed the departmental budgets or budget items of the Town Administrator, Insurance Benefits, Moderator, Cemetery. Planning & Code, Planning Board, Zoning, Sewer, and Conservation. The second and third meetings reviewed other departmental budgets.
A fourth joint meeting, held December 4, 2018, was the one in which problems with the “recent Tax Assessment” were first mentioned. From the minutes:
BOS questioning how this process occurred without prior knowledge or notice. A current total of 747 properties increasing between 1-14.9% and 1189 properties increasing up more than 15% of a total 2719 total properties. Average change was over 14%.
The BOS of that time consisted of Chairman Rawson and Selectman Thibeault. Despite what is said in their minutes, it emerged later that, in fact, the BOS did have prior knowledge and notice, and had themselves approved the assessment.
That fourth joint BOS-Budget Committee of 2017 dealt also, as Old Business, with the BOS Approval of 2018 Default Budget and the Budget Committee Review And Recommendations of Town Budgets.
References:
Town of Milton. (2018, November 30). Joint Budget Committee Meeting Agenda, December 5, 2018. Retrieved from www.miltonnh-us.com/uploads/bos_agendas_850_1906353652.pdf
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