NEWRY — Selectmen approved a municipal budget of $771,838 Monday night and the town meeting warrant, Administrative Assistant Loretta Powers said Tuesday afternoon.
That’s $62,424 down from last year’s budget of $834,262 that voters agreed to raise and appropriate.
Most of that decrease comes from a different method of accounting for monies in the discounts and abatements accounts, Powers said. The town auditor recommended placing those amounts in the overlay.
The $771,838.30 amount to be raised by taxation, doesn’t include the SAD 44 and county tax assessments, which are done later in the year.
Town meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Monday, March 4, in the Bear River Grange Hall. A potluck supper will be held there at 5:30 p.m.
Powers said there are no controversial articles in the warrant.
Among the changes, voters will be asked to approve a 2 percent raise for the office staff, which includes a cost of living increase, and selectmen.
Grange hall improvements being sought include replacing the ramp into the building and taking out the old gas stove and replacing it with an electric stove, Powers said.
Voters are also being asked to replace the furnace in the Municipal Building. Powers said she didn’t know the age of the furnace, but the building itself was constructed in the early 1960s.
Powers said she doesn’t foresee an increase in sanitation charges, so she only proposed that $121,028 be raised and appropriated. As of Tuesday, the town has spent $116,595.93 of the $128,488 raised and appropriated last year.
From the Unappropriated Surplus account, voters will be asked to take $100,000 out and put it into the Capital Improvement account and to take another $75,000 to help cut down the tax rate.
Powers said voters will also be asked to take $254,000 from the Capital Improvement account to reclaim and pave the 3,150-foot-long Lone Pine Road and to repave 6,288 feet of the Sunday River Road from the Skiway Road intersection to the Monkey Brook intersection.
Additional work on the Sunday River Road includes shimming, or filling in low spots, Code Enforcement Officer David Bonney said.
As for municipal elections, which are done from the floor, Selectman Gary Wight and SAD 44 Director Deb Webster are seeking re-election.
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