2021 Thetford Town Meeting

​We want to offer some basic information on 2021 and emergency response so far.  As you can see in the 49 days since the start of this year (through Feb 18)  we have been busy with 42 separate emergency incidents. 

We recognize that 2020 was a challenging year for all with the pandemic and 2021 will continue to be challenging for much of the year.  With that our Board of Trustees, who manage the business of the department and appoint the fire chief, worked hard to create a lean budget with as little increase as possible.  Additional challenges though have been presented with the change in town meeting format to an Australian ballot.  We definitely see the need for this from a health and safety perspective, but not being able to speak to the articles and answer questions is a concern.

This year, the Selectboard shifted the separate warned article of the fire capital fund into article 8, the fire dept annual appropriation.  With this change it appears that the fire department budget went up 52.40%, that is a false percentage and is due to this combination of two previous articles.  While this makes sense from an auditing perspective for the town, it is a concern this year with little opportunity to explain it and answer questions. 
The other concern is that State statute does not provide for continued operation/spending if the article is voted down and a new vote would need to be scheduled by the town.  It is unclear what that would mean for fire dept operations during that time period.

Here is a comparison of the 2020 budget to the 2021 budget. As you can see, there is only a 2.43 percent increase in the operating budget appropriation and the capital fund has been level funded for 2021.  

We are asking our Thetford Community to please vote YES on Article 7.  

Thank you very much.