Alna has won the $2,000 grant it sought to help plan the town office’s future, selectmen announced May 4.

The Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission awarded the grant, Third Selectman Doug Baston said. When the town applied months ago, the board expected to use it on professional help looking at a possible town office move into the fire station, including possible legal planning over ownership of the station. The fire department owns it, but a change of some kind might be needed if the town office is there, selectmen have said.

Based on residents’ feedback at town meeting in March, the board decided to also look at changes that would keep the town office in the former cape home just south of the fire station on Route 218. The building needs work and a bigger meeting space, Baston said. If those points can be met, he would be OK with staying put, he said.

“I’m agnostic as to what we do.”

First Selectman David Abbott said it didn’t matter much to him where the town office is. He will support whatever the townspeople decide, he said.

The grant will help the town explore both options and, if the findings warrant it, also still fund legal planning on the station’s ownership, Baston said. “If we find the right person, it gets us out of our own biases,” he said about the upcoming hire of someone to assess the options for space at both buildings.

Bookkeeping and audit discussed

Certified public accountant Fred Brewer of William H. Brewer & Co. in Bath told the board he has met with Alna’s new treasurer Amy Warner about some steps to aid in bookkeeping. Among them, Brewer said Warner will be checking the committed taxes that appear in the general ledger on QuickBooks, against the collected taxes, which go on other software.

Baston asked if QuickBooks is still an adequate software for a town Alna’s size. It is, if the treasurer knows QuickBooks and how it differs from the town’s other software, Brewer said. 

“Our feeling is, that’s a good thing, because we don’t want someone to just be able to push a button and everything’s done for them, because finally it gets so they don’t know what’s going on,” Abbott responded.

Warner’s bookkeeping background and her knowledge of residents from her years as town clerk will help with her work as treasurer, Brewer told selectmen. She was elected in March.

Brewer was at the meeting to go over the town audit for the year that ended Jan. 31. At the start of the new fiscal year Feb. 1, the town had collected $1.3 million of the $1.4 million in property taxes committed in 2015, he said. Factoring in abatements, about $152,000 of last year’s tax bills remained unpaid at fiscal year’s end, he said.

The town had $231,000 to spend from checking and cash-on hand, which covers petty cash and tax payments received but not deposited yet, Brewer said.

Abbott said that sounds like a lot, but that it amounts to three payments to Regional School Unit 12. Alna takes out tax anticipation notes (TAN’s) because the town decides its budget in March and bills continue to come due for half a year before tax bills go out, officials said.

Brewer advised against allowing semi-annual property tax payments. People pay the first one and then forget the second one, he said.

The board authorized Abbott to sign for this year’s note. Like last year’s, it will be with Bath Savings for $500,000, Abbott said. He didn’t have the interest rate yet; last year’s note cost the town $2,151, he said.

The board meets next at 6 p.m. May 18 at the town office.