During a career in the finance industry, Bob Blake was told to do more with less. He thinks it’s time for the Town of Warner to do the same. 

With the current proposed budget of $4.6 million, Warner voters will be asked to approve roughly a 30 percent increase to the local tax rate – from $9.15 to just under $12 – after last-minute cuts. For a house assessed at $400,000, that would be an additional $1,200 per year. That’s just for the town portion of a tax bill, excluding school, county and state add-ons. 

Budget committee members agreed that no one wants to stand in front of voters at Town Meeting and make that request. But trimming the town budget isn’t that easy, they say.

Blake, a member of the budget committee, fears town spending is heading down a path of no return. Each year, wages increase for town employees. With it comes benefits, retirement funds and annual cost of living adjustments. To prove it, he ran the numbers.

Over the last few years, wages for a land use clerk position, transfer station wages and the select board administration salary have increased more than tenfold. 

In 2023, the land use clerk was paid roughly $17,200. For 2025, that position is proposed to hit just over $35,600 – a 107 percent increase. Full-time wages at the transfer station were just over $52,000 in 2023. This year, the proposed line item is $100,000 – another 90 percent increase. 

To Blake, it’s not a problem isolated to one department or one position. It’s a longstanding trend of irresponsibility from town leaders, he said. 

“We need to gain more discipline because the result or the outcome of continuing on this path, and you see it here two years in a row, is completely unsustainable,” he said. “I don't want to focus on one position. It's not a very nice thing to do. I'm focusing on our discipline as a leadership team, of the fiscal leadership team in this town.”

If the town continued to hold wage increases for municipal positions to 2.5% – the cost of living adjustment for Social Security recipients for 2025 – the budget would be spared just over $89,000. 

That’s only one cost-saving calculation at play for the elected group of volunteers who control the town’s annual finances. 

Another way to do it is a “top-down, bottom-up, top-down” approach from the committee, said Blake. The process starts with the budget committee setting expectations and department heads coming back with line item cuts to be approved. That process starts with highway and transfer station funds, after the budget committee voted to remove $30,000 from each of their budgets as a start. 

But to other committee members, the drastic increase doesn’t tell the whole story. With increased revenue in the town over the last few years – between federal pandemic relief funds and the sale of the town-owned cell tower – Warner’s local tax rate actually went down from $10.28 in 2023 to $9.15 in 2024. 

Last year’s tax bill should have included a bright red letter warning residents that this rate would be short-lived, said Ray Martin, the Water Precinct Representative on the budget committee.  

“But we didn’t,” he said. “Instead we patted ourselves on the back that we lowered people’s taxes.”

To Harry Seidel, a select board member, the proposed increases for this year’s budget will bring the town up to par with neighboring communities to offer competitive wages. Next year, the continued increases will subside outside of cost of living adjustments. 

“I think that the town of Warner will find in the next year that the increase will not continue,” he said. “We've caught up to where the marketplace is for these kinds of individuals, and we're there now.”

Alfred Hanson, a budget committee member, doesn’t see it that way. Costs will only continue to incur year to year without clear changes in town spending, he said. 

“In order to turn around, to try to, we have to change things. It’s very simple,” he said. “We can still change things and provide services in this town but at a different rate than where we’re headed.”

Residents have ideas as to what Warner needs, as well. A citizen’s petition means residents will vote on a warrant article to implement a tax cap, which would restrict any budget proposal increase to be within 3.8 percent of the previous year’s budget. 

Last year, a similar tax cap citizen’s petition, to restrict increases to 4 percent of the budget, was defeated.

However, James Gaffney, who introduced the petition last year, said if the budget committee did not look to cut spending ahead of Town Meeting, residents would be enticed to proposed their own changes the day of the meeting. 

“If you guys don't want to see a floor amendment at town meeting, I think you need to sharpen your pencil,” he said. 

Another citizen’s petition looks to help with tax relief for veterans – expanding the two veterans’ tax credits to offer an award of $750 for those eligible. 

The budget committee will vote on a final budget proposal and recommendations for warrant articles on Feb. 6 at 7 p.m. in the lower meeting room of Town Hall. There will be no public comment. Warner’s annual Town Meeting will be held at 6:00 p.m. on March 13.