MECHANIC FALLS – Only two weeks after residents received their tax bills, the town may be asking for more money.
The reason: rising gas and oil prices.
Just two months into its fiscal year, the town is already predicting it will spend through its fuel budget. At current prices, they would fall about $18,000 short, said Lisa Prevost, Mechanic Falls finance director.
And no one expects prices to level off. A special town meeting may even be called to deal with the situation.
The problem has been building since last March, when voters at the annual town meeting set their budget for the current fiscal year, which began July 1.
When the spending package was set, the town’s price for No. 2 heating oil was slightly more than $1 per gallon. Leaders built in an increase, figuring on prices between $1.33 and $1.48. However, when a fuel bill arrived last week, the total bill was $3,300 and the per-gallon price was $1.94.
“I’m afraid to find out what it is this week,” the finance director said Tuesday.
On Monday, she met with Town Manager Dana Lee and Assistant Town Manager John Hawley.
“We don’t have a lot of extra built into the budget,” Hawley said. “There is no fat in our budget.”
Only minutes after the meeting, the workers shut off the lights in the hallway of the town hall and pulled air conditions from its windows. They also came up with a plan for conserving energy this winter, such as lowering the temperatures in town buildings and ensuring that windows and doors are closed.
Those measures won’t offset the rising costs, though.
Travel in town vehicles may also be cut, but on most days there’s only one police cruiser on the road. Firetrucks sit parked when there’s no emergency.
“We’re not going to shut down our plows this winter because the price of gas has gone up,” Hawley said.
A memo about the predicted shortfall was sent to members of the Town Council, which is scheduled to meet Sept. 6. The next step will be up to the council. More money will have to be spent.
The money is likely to come from one of two sources: a contingency account for emergencies or from undeclared funds in the current budget, Hawley said.
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