Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Budget Warrant topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Danville selectmen press for clearer timetable and public notice on warrant articles and default budget
Summary
Selectmen criticized the Budget Committee’s timing and lack of public review time for the operating and default budgets, reviewed DRA portal calculations for warrant-article tax impacts, and noted two contested line-item classifications (ACO and Supervisors of the Checklist).
The Danville Board of Selectmen on Jan. 12 pressed for clearer timing and more public notice as the town moves toward its warrant-article vote, saying the Budget Committee has not supplied final numbers in time for adequate public review.
Annemarie Inman, chair, convened the meeting as Vale VanDoorne-Freeman presented a spreadsheet of MS-1 calculations used to compute per-$1,000 tax impacts for warrant articles 13–23 and said she had begun uploading items to the New Hampshire DRA portal. Selectman Shawn O’Neil said the Budget Committee had not yet set a number for the operating budget and suggested the Selectmen might need to hold a special meeting to vote before the scheduled public hearing. "It’s not right to have a public hearing scheduled without giving the public enough time to review the numbers," Shawn said.
The Selectmen raised particular concern about reliance on the default budget as a benchmark. Joe Hester said the default budget shouldn’t be used as a yardstick for setting percentage increases and called that practice unsound. Annemarie criticized what she characterized as the Budget Committee giving priority to members’ preferred items rather than time for public review, calling the behavior "misrepresentation" to town voters.
Vale told the board she had uploaded most Selectmen-line items to the DRA portal but that two items still needed placement: the Animal Control Officer (ACO) line and the Supervisors of the Checklist. Selectmen and the Budget Committee had classified those items differently; Vale said the ACO was currently placed under police/pest-control in committee materials while the Supervisors’ full budget had been put under the Town Clerk in the committee’s submission despite the Selectmen having prepared a separate Supervisors line.
The board discussed timing: the Budget Committee was scheduled to meet Jan. 13 and the public hearing was set for Jan. 14. Joe said he planned to review meeting recordings to confirm whether the default budget had been approved at the prior meeting before the Selectmen vote could proceed. Shawn urged that any public-mailer explanations be factual and include Selectmen discussion notes that clarify the town’s position on contested items.
The Selectmen did not take a final vote on the operating budget during the Jan. 12 meeting. The next procedural steps are completion of the Budget Committee numbers, updated DRA portal entries, and any special Selectmen meeting to set or vote on the operating budget before the public hearing.
