At the March 26 organizational meeting the Kingston Budget Committee assigned members to serve as liaisons for department and committee budgets, prioritizing the town’s largest spending areas and recommending that building inspection/code enforcement and solid waste/recycling be broken out of the executive budget in future years.

Chair Stacy Dion proposed four priority liaisons for the coming year: executive/finance, fire and emergency management, police and animal control, and highway and municipal buildings. Committee members volunteered for those assignments during the meeting: Dion said she would take executive, Trish Sitt would cover fire, Chuck Hart agreed to police and animal control and Anne Marie Roth accepted highway and municipal buildings.

Dion explained the liaison role as one of monitoring and inquiry rather than control: liaisons review expenditures, ask for supporting data when something appears unusual, and meet with department heads during budget season to understand line-item variances. “Part of the budget committee’s responsibility is to monitor expenditures, monitor not control,” the chair said, describing how liaisons might query a highway department line that showed higher seasonal costs after a severe winter.

Members discussed separating certain line items currently bundled in the executive budget. The solid waste and recycling committee maintains a $6,000 committee fund currently listed under the executive budget; members argued that as the committee’s scope and budget grow (for example, discussion about a recycling center) it should be broken out as its own budget line so the committee’s chair and work are more visible. Similarly, members recommended that building inspection and code enforcement be treated as a distinct budget area given recent changes in staffing and activity.

Committee members also discussed practical limits: liaisons are not required to attend routine committee meetings but may contact committee chairs or department heads when budget questions arise. The chair said she will circulate bylaws, a liaison list and department contacts to new members, and will confirm committee chairs before distributing liaison assignments.

The liaison assignments are intended to improve oversight during the budget season and to give committee members a working familiarity with the departments they review in case questions arise at public hearings.