MECHANIC FALLS — Polls will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday, June 11, at the Municipal Building on Lewiston Street to set the budget for the town’s fiscal year beginning July 1.
Voters are tasked to decide on a $2.2 million budget that the Town Council and Budget Committee developed at a public hearing in May.
The vote is being held in accord with the town’s new two-step method of setting the budget.The town has eliminated the traditional town meeting.
While the proposed budget calls for spending $205,000 less than the current year’s budget, the effect on the property tax rate — thanks in large part to an anticipated reduction in state aid — will be an increase in what comes out of local property taxpayers’ pockets.
According to Town Manager John Hawley, the owner of a property with an assessed value of $100,000 would see a property tax increase of about $238.
“It all depends on what lawmakers in Augusta finally settle on,” Hawley said.
Hawley noted that the proposed budget anticipates that the town will receive $175,000 in state revenue-sharing — which is about $123,000 less than the town was supposed to receive this year — and if the town receives less than the $175,000, the property tax increase could be much higher than $238.
“There are no luxury items in the budget, but it does preserve all the municipal services that people are used to,” Hawley said.
The amounts to be placed in the town’s reserve and capital improvement accounts have been drastically reduced — about $200,000 less than a year ago — a move Hawley called “an unacceptable practice” for the long-term fiscal health of the town.
These accounts, Hawley pointed out, become the town’s savings accounts; money set aside for expensive equipment that will need replacement.
“We haven’t had to borrow for municipal vehicles, big-ticket items, since 2000. The reserve accounts keep us from going into debt,” Hawley said.
Townspeople will vote on the $2.2 million budget line by line, much as they would have in the old town meeting format.
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