Westminster voters approved a $26 million town budget at Saturday's annual town meeting
Westminster voters took less than two hours to pass all 20 articles at annual Town Meeting on Saturday in the Westminster Elementary School gymnasium. Prior to annual Town Meeting, voters approved all five articles on the special Town Meeting warrant.
The 20 articles included the town budget for fiscal 2025, which totaled $26,836,512, an increase of $1,455,707 over FY24.
The three articles that requested free cash were approved, totaling $455,000, leaving $2,598,515 left in the free cash account.
Article 5 from the special town meeting warrant allocates $125,000 to the "Small Projects and Initiatives program" under the direction of Stephanie Lahtinen, the town administrator. The money will be used to pay for any project requests from town departments. In the prior 2023 ATM, the program paid for 16 project requests, and now town officials plan to do another round of funding.
Article 17 allocates $100,000 for another town administrator-directed project for a "Building and Equipment Maintenance Fund." This project focuses on public safety departments and pays for unpredictable one-time costs, vehicle or building maintenance, and town-wide property analyses.
Article 13 allocates $230,000 to reduce the fiscal 2025 tax rate.
Next Town Clerk to be appointed; Health assistant hours increased
The next Town Clerk will be appointed by the town after the passage of Article 6, which changes the Town Clerk's position from elected to appointed. Lahtinen said that the current Town Clerk, Ellen Sheehan, will stay until her term ends, and then the hiring process will begin.
Abby Conlin, the town's health agent, told voters why should they approve Article 5, which establishes a full-time assistant Health Agent position. The current position only allows the assistant to work 19 hours a week and offers no town employee benefits. Conlin said the position needs to be a minimum of 30 hours full-time so they can serve the community better and retain employees. She said former assistants have had to have supplemental jobs to make ends meet, and the department had a hard time retaining assistants because the position has no employee benefits.
Conlin said the town has seen an increase in restaurants, food trucks, and home kitchens in the past five years, all of which require routine food safety inspections. Food safety inspections are the department's highest priority so that a full-time assistant can help with the increased workload. Conlin said the ongoing PFAS issue also brings in a lot of work for the department.
The full-time assistant position has an estimated salary of $67,501, which includes the highest health insurance, family plan, and other benefits. The estimated salary is already included in the FY25 town budget. Voters approved the article
This article originally appeared on Gardner News: Westminster annual town meeting approves $26.8 million budget for FY 2025
