Greenfield residents weighed in on warrant articles proposing the town study the potential for a regional police force with Hancock and becoming an SB2 town at Thursday night’s annual budget hearing.

About 40 people attended the hearing in the town office building. The meeting followed a preliminary budget hearing in early January, which the Select Board had added to the town calendar the request of residents. 

“We incorporated feedback from the community after the first hearing, and we were able to cut over $30,000  from the budget based on those suggestions. We really do want to thank everyone who comes to these meetings and weighs in, because it really helps us, ” said Select Board Chair Mason Parker.  

After meeting with the select boards from Hancock, Bennington and Antrim in January about exploring the potential to regionalize police departments, the Greenfield Select Board put forth a warrant article to  see if the town will support a study looking into the possibility of regionalizing police with Hancock. The warrant will have no tax impact.

Parker said that after meeting with the three other towns, the board decided Hancock might be the best fit for potential regionalization, as the towns have similar populations and are both in the same district court, which would enable them to share a prosecutor.

Select Board member Tom Bascom said that with the increasing difficulty of finding qualified candidates for police forces, many towns are talking about regionalization to lower costs and share resources. Bascom said if the warrant article passes, the town would be studying a model from three northern New Hampshire towns that had regionalized. 

Residents raised questions about coverage and response time, what a regional structure would look like and who would serve on the committee.

“We would have all stakeholders possible on the committee, including our police department, and any town residents would like to serve on the committee,” Parker said. “We welcome anyone who would like to volunteer.”

Speaking on behalf of the department, Police Chief Brian Giammarino said he had mixed feelings about the proposal. 

“Our primary concern is Greenfield and the safety of Greenfield,” he said. “Right now, we have a full force, and we have a really fantastic force, and we would need to look at how any changes might impact that.” 

The warrant will appear on the ballot in March.

Greenfield may explore SB2

In response to recent conversations on a Greenfield social media page about Town Meeting, the Select Board put forth a warrant to see if the town will support establishing a Town Meeting study committee exploring the town switching to an SB2 model of town government. 

“This was not a petition warrant article. This was in response to a lot of conversations on social media. It sounds like people in town may be interested in this, so we wanted to respond, ” Parker said. 

Parker said he did not see any of the people who had raised the issue on social media at the budget hearing. 

New Hampshire SB2 towns  are required to hold a budget hearing and a deliberative session presenting warrant articles in advance of a Town Meeting ballot session. Amendments to warrant articles must be proposed at the deliberative session, and all warrants are voted on by ballot in March. 

Town Administrator salary questioned

Several town residents expressed concern about town employees, including Town Administrator Aaron Patt, receiving significant raises this year. 

“A 30% raise seems like a lot, especially when most people got 4%, ” said resident Ginnie Plourde. 

Parker said the board felt the raise was warranted.

“There are a lot of openings for municipal jobs, and there is no shortage of poaching from other towns. We have Peterborough right down the road who can always pay more, and we feel it is very important to keep the people we have,” Parker said. “We have A-plus employees across the board, and if we don’t treat them well, they won’t stay. We can’t expect them just to stay for our culture here; we also have to show them we appreciate them with wage increase.”

The overall Greenfield budget decreased by $12,748.