Town Nears Deficit After Snow Ups Overspending in 'Too Tight' Budget

North Hampton officials say residents will likely soon see a reduction in services, or at least a delay in those services, as department heads work to curb and counter overspending problems that were only worsened by Tuesday’s snowstorm.

Town Administrator Paul Apple said the town has been spending outside of its means this year due to a “systemic problem” with budgeting for town services — a problem Apple said has been “blown open” by inclement weather and emergencies.

These events have taxed the overtime budgets of the town’s three largest departments — Police, Fire and Public Works — and if corrective measures aren’t taken Apple said North Hampton will post a deficit come the end of the fiscal year in June.

"I think it’s important that we stay within the figures that were approved by the voters," said Apple, who now meets every week with department heads to discuss spending rates and overtime. "That means making choices. I think that’s important because voters entrusted us with a certain amount of money. I've stressed that to the department heads. We have to stay within budget.

“It’s not an option for us to expend the bottom line, so we’re going to stay within what the voters gave us.”

Tuesday's snowstorm was exactly the kind of event officials were hoping was over, as the North Hampton Public Works Department needed to fund 53 hours or about $8,000 worth of overtime to plow, salt and sand roadways and parking lots, according to Apple.

The problem, Apple said, is the department already overspent its $19,300 overtime budget in February, and before Tuesday had only had a maximum balance of 60 overtime hours until the end June in order to avoid having to make cuts.

When combined with the fact that the North Hampton Fire Department is expected to overspend its overall bottom line by between $18,000 and $65,000, and the fact that the North Hampton Police Department is expected to spend all but $18,500 of its overall budget, those numbers have lead to various across-the-board controlled spending measures in all departments to help mitigate the problem.

Apple said no program cutbacks are planned at this time, although he said the town won’t fix potholes or pave roadways until the next fiscal year, or until numbers at the end of May show that overspending is under control. This cut will save a few thousand dollars, and selectmen have opted to forgo their salaries — which in total amount to $3,700 — in order to use the funds to offset a potential deficit.

Training in “all functional areas” has also been cut, and North Hampton won’t contract out the transcription of meeting minutes and will reduce its advertising in recreation and other departments a way to reduce costs.

Programs directly serving or impacting residents haven’t yet been touched, as Apple said it’s a “wait and see” situation to see whether these measurers pay off before making changes that impact more than the “edges” of the budget. That doesn't mean the necessity isn't on the table, though. 

"The various contingencies we had planned for are still intact," said Apple. "At this point we don’t think we have to do anything differently than already done, which is to watch carefully. We think we're going to be OK, but that's an ongoing discussion."

Selectman Larry Miller said in the March 11 meeting that the budget "is just too tight." Apple said his point is valid and that the numbers show the town needs to change its way of budgeting this year because making cuts lessens public safety, and because the only way to counter a deficit without cuts is to raise additional money through a special town meeting — which costs money to hold — or get permission from the state Department of Revenue Administration to spend from the fund balance.

Apple said he couldn't estimate how much of increase he expects to see in next year's proposed budget, although he said residents should expect to see one as well as a significant shift in thinking so that more of a focus is paid to the services the town needs to fund rather than the percent change that the funding of those services creates in the budget's bottom line.

"What I recommend is we fine-tune our methodology and consider a number of different funding sources," said Apple, stating that the town needs to use more than just the past two or three years worth of data when budgeting snow removal costs in order to avoid inaccurate skewing.

Apple will report back to the board at an April 22 meeting to see if the town is "trending toward" the "baseline" overexpenditure projections — which also call for public works to break even on its overall budget — or if additional cuts will have to be made.

"We’ll see how it goes," said Apple. "I’m fairly optimistic, actually. There's been a lot of work done. I'm fairly optimistic we’re going to finish as projected, that we’ve chosen a pretty reasonable baseline."