JAY – The town of Jay had their annual budget meeting on Monday night, and the Select Board and Budget Committee voted to approve the $5.86 million municipal budget for the 2023-24 fiscal year.
The total approved budget for 2023-24 is 5,864,797.00, surpassing last year’s budget by $363,938. There is also an estimated $2.7 million in revenues that have not yet been factored into the town’s budget.
The Select Board voted to fund recreational activities through the Tower Fund Reserve Account which had a balance of $172,781. By taking out $13,000 to put towards summer recreation and $18,802 for donations out of the reserve fund, the reserve balance would have a total of $140,979.
The Select Board and Budget Committee also voted to approve the proposed Jay Fire Department budget of $330,639, granting them the extra $9,300 requested by Chief Mike Booker to hire a per diem person.
Booker requested that the on-call person be replaced with a per diem person while he works full-time at the Mexico Fire Department, which would increase the proposed Fire Department budget by $9,300. Booker also stated that the reason he would like to change to per diem is because there were 44 on-call shifts that were not filled out of the 90 available shifts.
“Calls were up this year, we responded to 433 calls and 61 of those were to Livermore Falls,” Booker said. “If you subtract the Livermore Falls calls and the fact we cut back on the first responder calls, there was still an increase in calls from last year [when] we responded to 353.”
The Jay Fire Department responded to a total of 82 mutual aid calls over the past year, and the department requested mutual aid 17 times.
On March 13 at 6 p.m. there will be a public hearing at the Spruce Mountain Elementary School gymnasium. Absentee voting will begin on March 24 for voters, and the annual Town Meeting voting will take place on April 25 at the Community Building where town residents will be able to vote on the proposed budget.
This meeting was recorded by Mt. Blue TV and is available for viewing online at MtBlueTV.org
