ROXBURY — Necessary roadwork is mostly driving a nearly $244,000 spike in monies proposed to be raised through taxation this year.
At the town meeting at 6 p.m. Monday, March 4, in the town hall, voters are asked to raise $704,392.77 toward the municipal budget. That does not include county and school assessments, which are done later in the year.
The proposed amount is $243,546.32 more than the $460,846.45 taxpayers raised last year, Renee Hodsdon, deputy town clerk, tax collector and treasurer, said Friday afternoon.
Last year, residents approved starting a multiyear construction project to upgrade town roads.
Selectmen Chairman John Sutton stated in the just-released 2012 town report that the first phase involved a major reconstruction of Main Street from the intersection of Route 120 to the Meadowbrook Bridge.
The town also started a project on Swain Farm Road and Horseshoe Valley Road, which will be completed this year, Sutton said.
Hodsdon said Roxbury has 13.5 miles of roads, only a few miles of which are still unpaved. That work will be done this year, she said.
Taxpayers are asked to raise and appropriate $194,000 in Article 14 for this year’s Road Improvement Project.
“It’s become more costly due to tarring costs,” Hodsdon said of the planned work.
Still, that’s $6,000 less than the $200,000 voters raised and appropriated for last year’s roadwork.
If every money article is approved in the 80-article warrant, Hodsdon said it will be a $1.40 to $1.50 increase in the tax rate of $6.93 per thousand dollars of valuation.
Among new items this year is Article 30, which asks voters if they want to raise and appropriate $4,000 to support a “Spring Clean-up” for the ensuing year.
“It’s like the ones Mexico and Rumford do, so the selectmen put money in there for it, if voters support it,” Hodsdon said.
Another new item is packaged with Article 16, which seeks to raise and appropriate $18,300 for fire protection for the ensuing year. Of that amount, $1,300 is for ladder-truck coverage from Rumford and Mexico fire departments, which jointly purchased a used ladder truck recently.
“This ($1,300) guarantees ladder-truck coverage in our town,” Hodsdon said. “That is my understanding of it. We have a lot of chimney fires and a lot of two-story homes that it would go to.”
As for using excise revenues, selectmen recommend taking $17,246.91 to cover a 10 percent hike in municipal salaries, and transferring $10,000 to the Winter Roads account and $5,000 to the Social Security account.
As for money to be raised and appropriated for social services, going with selectmen’s recommendations would save the town $860, Hodsdon said.
“Selectmen like to go with $1 or $2 per capita,” she said.
In municipal elections, Selectman Timothy Derouche and Hodsdon are running unopposed for three-year terms.
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