By Rod Hansen
Staff Writer

The desire to keep tax rates stable has caused at least one selectman to advocate freezing increases in Goffstown’s budget.

“I’ve been giving this a lot of thought, and I’m of a mind to go with level funding,” said Selectman John Caprio at the selectmen’s meeting of Oct. 23.

Under a level-funding strategy, the budget would exclude all funding increases not required by contractual obligations.

Caprio’s comment came during the board’s second round of budget deliberations, as the board examined items from individual departments on a line-by-line basis.

One stated goal of the board of selectmen is to maintain a stable tax rate from year to year.

The current town portion of the tax rate is $8.11 per $1,000 of assessed property, and the tax rate for 2006 is expected to be $8.26.

The current budget proposals would set the 2007 town portion of the tax rate at $9.55, Griffin said.

That number includes all cuts selectmen have suggested to the current budget requests, and board members have said they will continue to suggest cuts until the tax rate approaches stability with the 2006 rate.

Although Caprio advocated a level-funding approach to keep the budget in check, Selectman Phil D’Avanza said this method could discourage department heads from making their own budget cuts.

“A department’s budget is going to have some lines with increases, and some lines with decreases. The message (level-funding) sends to department heads is, ‘Don’t bring in any decreases, just bring in increases and the selectmen will cut them down to current levels anyway,” D’Avanza said.

At their opening budget deliberations of Oct. 16, selectmen had looked at items in the town’s Capital Improvements Program. That program offers a five-year overview of all purchases beyond $25,000 requested by town departments.

Selectmen went through public works and fire department budgets line by line at their meeting of Oct. 23, deciding to level-fund some line items and cut out others altogether.

The Department of Public Works budget comprises three subheadings, including department operations, cemetery operations and solid waste operations.

Selectmen suggested level-funding or cuts to several line items in the department’s $3.1 million operating budget, including rejecting a truck driver’s position that would have been split between public works and solid waste; a reduction of $5,500 in a line item for surplus equipment, and level-funding the amount of money the town spends on road signs at $6,000.

The requested $1.2 million solid waste operations budget survived largely intact, although the second half of the driver’s position to be split with department operations was cut. The requested $97,700 for cemetery operations also made it through budget deliberations without any major cuts.

Selectmen also reviewed the fire department’s $2.1 million operating budget without making any major cuts, although the previous week they recommended that $40,000 for a fire utility vehicle, $225,000 for a fire engine, and $50,000 for a fire department facilities study all be taken out of the capital improvements program, in addition to other cuts.

Although Police Chief Michael French and Director of Parks and Recreation Dave French attended the meeting, niether of those departments’ budgets went under review that night.

Selectmen will continue their budget deliberations at their meeting on Monday, Oct. 30.