Town improvements, police hours hit by proposed new budget cuts

by Barry Merrill
NL Publisher

When you’re working with a town budget and you’re looking to cut expenses, pretty soon you’re usually talking about cutting people.

Princeton Town Clerk Marla Ashworth has put together her cuts to get the budget down to a 3¢ tax increase, as requested by Mayor Don Rains. Those cuts will be bloody.

As hinted earlier, the improvements at the maintenance shop will likely be postponed for at least a year when the board begins giving their takes on where the budget needs cutting next Tuesday.

Also taking a hit will be special appropriations, including Project Graduation, the Princeton Library, the Princeton Senior Center, and the Princeton Women’s Improvement Club. Also cut in the proposal will be the Appearance Commission, who gets $1,000 annually.

One of the hardest cuts will come in the police department. Mrs. Ashworth, in order to get expenses down, has prepared a budget that will cut the coverage of the police department down from 24 hour a day coverage down to 20 hours a day.

She is also offering for consideration eliminating the “drug money” from the Princeton budget. The town has been budgeting $3,000 to use to purchase drugs to get evidence.for drug prosecutions.

Finally, the newly filled part-time administrative assistant position would be eliminated in the proposal.

Mrs. Ashworth is not advocating any of the cuts, as she believes all of the requests are needed, but only recommends them to meet the revenues as projected.

The cuts total $57,000. Each penny on the tax rate adds $5,500 worth of revenue.

Princeton went to 52¢ on the tax rate after the last tax revaluation, and two years ago made a decision to go up 2¢ at that time.

She related that there had been discussions of cutting the maintenance department to one person, but due to safety issues, there were some tasks that could not be performed without having a second person to help make sure the work was done safely.

She also noted that probably a million dollars in property had been added to the town and property tax rolls through annexation, but when taxes are paid on cents per $100 valuation, even that doesn’t have a great impact on the budget.

No changes in water, sewer or garbage fees are projected at this time, though that may change if the town’s garbage contractor asks for an increase.

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