Selectmen’s Board
Documentation of E-Mail Chain
November 17 & 18, 2014
Participating Selectmen: Bob Thompson, Chairman; John Allen and Bill Lockard, Selectmen
Other Participants: Town Office Administrator Julie Atwell
Subject: Tax Rate/Use of Unreserved Funds
At the Board’s meeting of October 16, 2014, a decision was made to discuss the tax rate and use of the Unreserved Fund via an e-mail chain.
On Monday November 24, 2014 Town Office Administrator Julie Atwell sent the following e-mail out to the Board:
From: Julie Atwell
To: Bill Lockard, Bob Thompson, John Allen
Sent: Mon, Nov 17, 2014
The preliminary tax rate just came in. The Town portion was $5.15 with no fund balance used, (last year’s town portion was $3.83). You need to now determine how much of the unreserved fund balance to use.
Bob and Tammy (from Crane and Bell) have come up with a suggestion:
1) Use $412,500 from the Unreserved Fund Balance
2) This would increase the tax rate by 5.5%
3) Leaving the fund balance at 12.68% or $655,051
At the Selectmen’s meeting where the tax rate was discussed, it was suggested that 11% be left in the unreserved fund balance, but Tammy and Bob thought that keeping 12.68% would be on the safer side for next year. We are also anticipating putting somewhere around $100,000 back into the unreserved fund balance for this year.
Please let me know your thoughts ASAP. I would like to get your decision back to Jamie at DRA first thing tomorrow morning.
Thanks,
Julie
Julie Atwell
Jackson Town Office
Upon receipt of this e-mail, Selectman John Allen asked what the rate would be if the Board chose to use the recommended amount and Town Office Administrator Atwell immediately replied the rate would be $4.041 which was corrected to $4.09.
On November 17, 2014 Selectman Bill Lockard stated he would support the other Selectmen’s recommendations. Shortly thereafter, Chairman Bob Thompson responded that he supports using the recommended amount. Selectman Allen, after receiving the updated tax information, responded on November 18, 2014 that he, too, supports using the recommended amount.
Respectfully submitted by:
Martha D. Tobin
Transcriptionist
| 
