Fairfax Town Plan Maintains Level Funding

The following article appeared in The Thursday Edition Of The Messenger, February 26, 2009 and was edited on February 27, 2009 to correct an original error

Fairfax Town Plan Maintains Level Funding
Annual meeting Sat., voting Tues.
By LISA M.BOUCHER
Messenger Correspondent

FAIRFAX—The Fairfax town budget at $1,730,456 is about five percent less than last year, even if all warned items - totaling $262,878 -- were to be approved by voters.

Fairfax Town Meeting will be this Saturday, Feb. 28, at 10 a.m. The school board will be presenting first with the town to follow. Voting will take place Tuesday, March 3, in the old gym from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Among the list of municipal items that have decreased this year are payroll, retirement, and insurance expenses. These total a savings of $10,377.

The largest boon for the town budget is the removal of re-treatment/blacktopping and a fire truck loan totaling $175,000. In a warned item from last year's budget, voters approved $80,000 to pay off the fire truck loan.

"Paving has been removed from the budget," said town clerk/treasurer Deborah Woodward.

"We're just trying to keep it tight because of the economy."
Woodward was appointed by the select-board to replace Donna Meunier, who retired earlier this year, and will fill the remaining year of Meunier's term. The post will reopen in 2010.

For a number of years the town has been paving short sections of its dirt roads in an effort to cut down on the maintenance costs associated with them. This project is to be suspended.

Warned ballot items this year include $200,000 for a new fire ($160,000 financed over years with the remaining balance paid from the fire truck replacement fund and $19,878 from the Fairfax Rescue Squad operating budget. This amount is less than half what the rescue squad requested from voters last year.

"We received more revenue from insurance billing this year than we anticipated," said squad
president, Michael Spaulding. Also because of increased call volume in our service areas, we
requested funds a little differently"

Spaulding added that because of the move into the northern part of Westford that began in Dec. 2007, the funding request was divided between the three service areas of Fairfax, Fletcher, and Westford in a 60/20/20 percent split.

Selectboard Chair Judy Cleary will not be seeking another term. Running for her seat are John Mitchell and Melissa Beerworth. Board member William Ormerod's three year term is also up, however he will be running uncontested.

Mitchell who lives in an historical family home in the village; has a longstanding history in Fairfax having lived in the town for 30 years. He is the general manager at Champlain Oil Company and has served on several boards in the area. He offers this experience and knowledge of the town to move it forward. Beerworth, in contrast brings a vastly different perspective to the race. A twenty-something Stay-at-home-mom who has lived on Buck Hollow Road since moving to Fairfax in 2004, Beerworth feels her experience as a boutique manager and buyer as well running and maintaining a household on one income have enabled her to be effective in serving the residents of Fairfax.

Beerworth said she recognizes that the town has an ever-growing 25- to 34-year-old demographic that needs to be represented. She has been volunteering and participating in various organizations in town and has also been attending selectboard meetings since last summer to apprise herself of what is happening.

"This perspective in the decision making processes that affect our day to day lives as residents of Fairfax is currently nonexistent," she said in a letter to the Fairfax News.

If approved that measure would bring the school budget to $11,317,945, a 1.49 percent total budget increase.