The Hancock Select Board discussed budget items they could dial back spending on in light of uncertain state revenues due to COVID-19 at a recent meeting.
The town anticipates $100,000 in losses, Town Administrator Jonathan Coyne said, although it’ll be July before they see the first potential cuts in highway block grants, and revenues from the meals and rooms tax won’t come until the end of the year.
So far, the Select Board has opted to forgo their own stipends for several quarters, and delay a couple road projects, Coyne said. “We don’t want to go doing a bunch of projects to find out that our state revenue is coming in at 50 percent less than what we were anticipating,” he said.
The Board also opted to cancel the town’s summer recreation program. “In the big picture, it’s not a whole lot,” Coyne said of the related savings, but the town decided it’d be too much work to comply with the governor’s COVID-19 prevention guidance for summer day camps with a handful of young kids serving as camp counselors. “It’s a lot to ask them to try to keep kids away from each other and social distance,” he said. The town beach is open but unstaffed by lifeguards, and the docks and rafts won’t be put out this year.
The Select Board discussed other proposed cuts by department on May 18. They agreed to not consider furloughs for town employees, but did talk about forgoing items like tree work and flag pole painting on the town common, legal expenses, and suspending police from working special detail with Eversource projects, Coyne said.
The town’s Independence Day fireworks are postponed to Old Home Day weekend in August, Coyne said, but as a public health precaution rather than a fiscal decision.