DEEP RIVER

Due to what was seen as an excess in expenses, the Deep River Water Pollution Control Authority (WPCA) decided by a 5-1 margin to vote down its 2024-‘25 fiscal year budget following a dual public hearing and special meeting on June 24.

The budget sought a 22% increase over the current year’s budget, seeking to add $338,019 in expenses for salaries, utilities, operations, and other aspects of its service to Deep River. This would have brought the new budget for the 2024-’25 fiscal year up from the projected $1,544,230 of last year’s budget to $1,882,249 in expenses.

The most discussed parts of the budget as part of the public hearing were on an increase in the funding of merit-based objectives rewards by $750 and a proposed increase in user fees of $50 per dwelling unit in town.

WPCA member George Eckenroth emphatically told his fellow board members that the increase in merit-based bonuses, which are awarded to service people for high performance of important objectives as determined by the WPCA, should be taken out of the budget because they would be illegal.

Eckenroth, who is also the chair of the Board of Finance, cited that the union agreement signed by member Pete Knox and the currently sitting Board of Selectmen show that “wages are in the agreement.”

“Therefore, this bonus would be illegal,” he said.

Seeing that WPCA staff is “adequately, if not excessively paid,” and that the budget called for an increase in user fees, Eckenroth suggested removing the bonus increase as a cost-saving measure for residents.

“If we pull that bonus out, the increase we will have to ask our residents to pay for will be substantially smaller,” he said.

Eckenroth suggested pulling the current year budget’s merit-based objective line item of $25,000 in a workshop which will be held by the WPCA as part of the revision of the 2024-’25 budget.

The increase in merit-based bonus received criticism from attending citizens of the public hearing portion of the dual WPCA meetings. In the public hearing, Asher Sigurdson spoke about the inherent bonus within the wages, telling the WPCA that bonuses for contract employees of the authority who already have negotiated wages “to do above and beyond” work “should be included as part of those wages.”

“'I’m sure they do dangerous things, but that's part of their job description,” said Sigurdson. “When you're a police officer, that's part of your job description. When you are a fireman, if you're a professional, going into burning buildings, which is suitably crazy, is part of your job description. You don't need a bonus for those things. That's your job, and you have a negotiated wage for that job.”

The increase of the fees per dwelling unit also received criticism from Joann Hourigan, head of the Deep River Housing Authority, which oversees affordable living spaces at Kirtland Commons for senior and disabled residents.

“My reserves are tight, way tighter than yours,” she told the WPCA. “This proposed increase of 50 bucks isn’t 50 bucks for me. For the housing authority, it’s 50 times 45, which may not seem like a lot, but it is.”