The Kennebec Journal

March 20

Pittston annual town meeting today

By Mechele Cooper mcooper@centralmaine.com
Staff Writer

PITTSTON — Voters at their annual town meeting Saturday agreed to pay selectmen $6,000 more than last year.

Resident Bob Bender asked that the amount for selectmen be reduced to what they were paid last year, $11,000.

“I move that we don’t give them a raise this year and keep it what it was in the past,” Bender said.

But voters agreed the town’s three selectmen should recieve  $17,000.

“This year we have done a lot of work and we haven’t had an increase in salary for a significant time,” Burns-Macomber said. “We all work 40-hour-a-week jobs and then come in and do this work. We don’t sit around on our thumbs. We’re busy trying to do what you want us to do. We’re all taxpayers and I can say it’s a thankless job.”

One resident made a motion to dismiss the $10,560 budget line for administrative secretary’s salary. That motion failed, but then  Budget Committee secretary, Jane Hubert, asked to reduce the amount by 20 percent “to bring it more in line with other personnel in town.”

Selectman Wanda Burns-Macomber took issue with the request.

“You cut us tremendously last year,” Burns-Macomber said. “And we scrambled to do what you wanted us to do. Right now the county’s budget is up $83,000 and we don’t know what the school’s going to do. We’ve come in $52,000 less this year than last year and that’s counting all what we did last year ... I find it very difficult to defend the salaries for what these people do!”

Residents voted to pay the administrative secretary $10,560.