By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer
LIMESTONE — Limestone’s voters will decide whether their police department patrols 18 or 24 hours a day during the election on Tuesday, June 11 the day before the annual town meeting.
The selectpeople discussed the proposed shift in coverage during their last meeting on April 17.
“This is for budget [reasons] only, because we’re looking at losing some major dollars here and we’re trying to keep the mil rate where people can handle it without laying any people off,” said selectperson chair Tom Devoe.
In anticipation of state funds the town is slated to lose through changes to the state’s revenue sharing formula, the selectpeople have tentatively cut $100,000 from the proposed 2013/14 budget — $47,000 of which will be taken from the police department budget in correlation with the reduction of hours.
Voters will have final say on the proposed reduced coverage as two different police budget amounts will be presented during the June 11 election — one police department for roughly $247,000 for full coverage and the other for roughly $200,000 that reflects an 18-hour coverage period; last year’s police department budget was approved at $232,365, and a mil in Limestone is roughly $65,000.
Should the 18-hour shift be approved by voters, this will be the second major cut endured by the police department in the past five years — the first cut of nearly $30,000 occurred in 2011.
“There’s a lot of misunderstanding between this 24- and 18-hour coverage — and we’re getting crucified big time,” Devoe said during the meeting. “This is due to the budget only.”
Information about both budgets will be available in the town’s annual report, slated for availability on or around June 5.
Answering the question of a citizen during the meeting, Town Manager Donna Bernier explained that town officials do not know if the mil rate will increase this year as the school budget hasn’t been set yet.
“Until we get the second half of the equation … we don’t know,” she said.
The RSU 39 budget is slated for approval by the RSU Board tonight; that approved budget will then be the subject of a public budget meeting on May 29 at 7 p.m. at the Caribou Middle School. Pending no major changes are called for during the public budget meeting, the budget will seek voter approval on June 11 at Caribou, Limestone and Stockholm’s respective polling places.
“My feelings are that we should go ahead and put it out there as a 24- or 18-hour coverage with the two different [dollar amounts] and if the people vote to have 24/7 coverage, then they’ll just understand that their taxes will go up,” said selectperson Marilyn King.
A public hearing regarding the proposed reduction in service was held on April 24; Bernier said that only about 20 citizens attended.
“It was kind of split,” she said. “There were some people there who said they would be more comfortable with the 24-hour coverage, and others said ‘we have to make cuts.’”
The next meeting of the Limestone Selectpeople will take place tonight at 6:30 p.m. in the Municipal Building.
