WEST PARIS – Selectmen and the Budget Committee plan to oppose a request for $85,000 for a new plow truck at town meeting.

“The figures we are showing as a budget proposal include a request from Road Commissioner Bill Keach for a new plow truck at $85,000,” Selectman Howard Gurney said. “But we are going to oppose that because we don’t figure the new truck is needed. They have put a lot of money into the truck a new truck would replace, and we feel they can get by for another year or two with what they have. I don’t believe the people will go for it either.”

Without the truck purchase, Selectmen and the Budget Committee budget recommendations are $568,595 and $561,999, respectively. Last year’s budget was $578,901.

Gurney said it looks like the school assessment will be up $2,290, to $725,766, “but we don’t know about the county yet, which was $46,255 last year. We won’t know those figures exactly until later this spring.”

“If the voters go along with our recommendation including voting down the $85,000 for the new plow truck we probably will see a drop in our tax rate too,” Gurney said.

The annual town meeting will convene at 10 a.m. Saturday, March 6, in the gymnasium at the Agnes Gray School on Main Street.