FARMINGTON – County Budget Committee members approved nearly a $4.4 million spending package for 2006 by a 6-2 vote Monday in less than 20 minutes.
Jay Selectman Bill Harlow and Rangeley Plantation Assessor Cary Keep were the dissenters in the vote.
Most of the votes taken were approved unanimously with minimum comment from members of the audience during the public hearing.
Franklin County commissioners will take up the budget at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 20, at the Franklin County Courthouse. Their recommended proposal is $4.42 million.
The Budget Committee’s $4.39 million budget represents a $212,500 increase from the 2005 budget of $4.18 million.
Budget Committee members increased the sheriff’s budget by $5,000, which they added to the motor vehicle account to bring it up to $65,000. Sheriff Dennis Pike passed out a fact sheet that showed that the cost to buy three 2006 vehicles, a Crown Victoria, crew-cab pickup and passenger van, would be $68,000 plus $2,905 setup. That minus the trade-in allowance of $6,900 for a 1999 Jeep Cherokee, a 2001 Crown Victoria and 2002 transport van would bring the total cost to $64,005.
Wilton Selectman Keith Swett rounded the amount off to $65,000 and made the motion to approve it.
The total sheriff’s budget of $974,927 was approved unanimously by the Budget Committee.
The only article to have a split vote besides the overall budget was the program grants of $270,838, which passed by a 5-3 vote with Harlow, Keep and Farmington Selectman Stephan Bunker opposed. Harlow had said previously he wasn’t against the agencies; it’s just that when they’re funded at the county level, Jay pays 30 percent of the costs and the matter is taken out of local voters’ control. Bunker said after Monday’s meeting that he wasn’t against the agencies, he voted against the amount because it didn’t include money for the American Red Cross.
A public hearing on a proposed $840,435 spending plan for fiscal year 2006-07 for unorganized territories drew no comment. That figure represents an increase of $24,482 from the existing budget.
Commissioners will take this budget up on Dec. 20.
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