As budget season commences, Raymond’s Select Board and Budget Finance Committee held a workshop to introduce and discuss the fiscal year 2027 budget.
Interim Town Manager Glenn Michalowski said the Feb. 23 meeting will be the first of many discussing the budget proposal. Michalowski stepped into the role in mid-November, which under normal circumstances would have been when the town manager’s office was working on preparing the budget, and thanked the department heads for helping put the budget together in a compressed time frame.
While the proposal is mostly focused on maintaining current levels of service, there are a few longer range requests such as a full-time custodial position, the restoration of a front office position that was eliminated in 2020, and the development of a deputy tax collector position.
The workshop saw the heads of half of the town’s departments speaking, with the others due to speak on March 3. The first department head to speak was Richard Dowe, director of Raymond Village Library. The library budget request this year is $243,026, an increase of roughly $40,000 from the previous fiscal year. Dowe said the increase was due to plans to hire a new employee, who will help with circulation, coverage and youth services. Other changes Dowe mentioned were plans for a second day of van delivery service, as well as a video game collection that was started last week. He also reflected on the past year at the library, which hosted 242 programs with 4,000 participants in the past year, despite having a staff of three.
Contract Assessor Curt Lebel said the assessing department is entering the second half of a townwide revaluation project, the first in Raymond in 20 years, and he expects a substantial change to property values over the summer. The assessors department budget request this year is $107,985, an increase of around $9,000 from the current budget. The increase is largely due to an expansion of the role of assessing administrator under the tenure of the previous town manager.
Code Enforcement Officer Jason Williams said his office has seen a steady increase in building permits in recent years, with 38 single-family units and six accessory dwelling units approved in the past year. Williams said, in the wake of the passage of LD 1829, there has been a surge of interest in accessory dwelling units, and he expected the law to lead to rezoning in the town. Code enforcement is requesting $244,650 this year, a decrease of $6,000, with the software budget halved from $13,000 to $6,300. Williams said this was because the department had budgeted for FY 2026 with the intention of adding geographic information system (GIS) software, which fell through. He said that he hoped to carry the money over to next year, and, should the short-term rental initiative go through, he would add on to the permitting software that is directly tied to Vrbo and Airbnb so they could more accurately track and look at compliance.
Public Works Director Nathan White said the department was seeking a $50,000 increase in salaries to accommodate the change of the per diem employee they use for plowing in the winter into a full-time position. This employee will work in Parks and Rec during the summer. While the request for vehicle maintenance is only up by about $4,500, White said the cost of the cutting edges on the department’s snow plows increased by more than 100%, with another increase expected in the fall. This will add up to $30,000 to this item, which White is seeking to mitigate in the short term. The total requested budget for the Public Works Department is around $1.4 million, an increase of $52,000 from the previous fiscal year.
The workshop concluded with Michalowski discussing the administration department, which covers the town manager’s office, finance office, and clerk’s office. The total administration will be $834,372, an increase of about $185,000 from the previous fiscal year, with the largest increases being in contract fees and services, as well as legal fees. Michalowski said the town had spent quite a bit in terms of legal expenses over the previous fiscal year, and, although he characterized last year’s expenses as an anomaly, he did budget $50,000 for legal fees, an increase of $14,000 from the previous year.
The second joint budget workshop will be held on Tuesday, March 3, with the heads of Fire and Rescue, recreation, revenues and debt services, and information technology departments due to speak. From there, the town will move on to crafting the warrant articles, which will be approved in April to be voted on by the town in June.