By Winslow Durgin,Special to the Sun Journal

MINOT – Voters at Saturday’s town meeting will act on spending requests that are higher than the current budgets for school and municipal departments.

The School Committee’s proposed $3.2 million budget is up $78,000 from the present one, in large part because of an estimate that high school tuition costs will be $40,000 higher next year.

Although the school’s budget request is up by $78,000, the fact that the cash balance for this year is $185,000 less than a year ago means that taxpayers would have to come up with about $200,000 more than they did a year ago if the budget is approved as presented.

This means that the tax rate could rise about $2 per $1,000 of assessed value.

The Budget Committee advises paring about $30,000 from the school department’s request.

The Budget Committee also recommends against the School Committee request to add $23,000 to a separate capital improvements budget.

Budget Committee Chairman Brad O’Connor noted that his committee is recommending that voters reauthorize $20,000 – the amount raised last year to move the principal’s office but not spent – for capital improvements.

The Budget Committee found little to cut from the $1.5 million requested for the municipal side of the budget.

It is recommending cutting the common roads account from $174,000 to $165,700, and is taking no position on the request of $11,394 for growth management.

Town meeting voters will also be asked to accept two new streets as town ways: Arthur’s Way, which extends a few hundred feet off Bradbury Hill Road; and Highland Drive, which serves the Center Minot Heights subdivision located off Center Minot Hill Road.

Voters will consider ending the town’s minimum street ordinance to require teardrop-shaped turnarounds for new proposed dead-end streets and will be asked to approve establishing a capital reserve fund to be used for equipment for the fire and rescue department.

Money that would go into this fund would be raised through Fire Chief Steve French’s proposed policy for billing insurance companies for services that the department might provide at vehicle accident scenes.

Town officials are also seeking two grants in order to begin the development of the recently purchased land between Minot Consolidated School and the Town Office complex.

Townspeople, therefore, will decide whether to raise and appropriate up to $100,000 for an access road and parking area to serve future walking trails and future athletic fields with 50 percent of the total cost, up to $50,000, being paid back to the town by a federal grant.

Similarly, voters will be asked to raise $37,500 to build walking trails with 80 percent of that, $30,000, being paid back to the town by a state recreation trail grant.

Town meeting begins at 9 a.m. March 5 at Minot Consolidated School.

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