LIVERMORE FALLS – Sixteen people attended a public hearing on a proposed $2.5 million budget Monday that will go before voters June 12.

Many of them were connected to the budget’s preparation, but those who were not asked a lot of questions.

Town reports are ready and include a worksheet to let voters make decisions on warrant articles before they go to the polls, and to bring them when they vote.

It will also let people ask questions of town officials or Budget Committee members ahead of time so that they can better understand what they are voting on.

This is the first year the municipal budget will be decided by secret ballot.

Town Manager Martin Puckett said it looks like there will three, two-sided ballots dealing with the municipal budget. The warrant articles are on the town’s Web site, and Puckett hopes to put up a sample ballot so people may become familiar with it.

The site is www.livermorefallsmaine.org

There will also be ballots to deal with election of selectmen and SAD 36 directors and the SAD 36 budget that has not been finalized yet.

Some of the municipal budget accounts show decreases, and some show increases, but in some cases that doesn’t mean the accounts have gone up or down. It just means that accounting practices differ this year with postal expenses and phone expenses removed from individual budgets and included in different accounts that combine like expenses together.

Insurances are all in one article compared to some of it being in individual department accounts last year. Salaried administration costs are broken out in departments and wages of union workers appear on a separate line. So if something shows a zero in the current budget but a large increase this year, it could be the way it is formatted is different.

Article 35 asks voters if they want to change the treasurer’s position from an elected position to an appointed position. If it is approved, it would go into effect after Town Clerk/Treasurer Kristal Flagg’s term ends in 2008.

Flagg holds dual titles and is elected to both at the same time.

Puckett plans to check to see if he needs to do an amendment to the article because it doesn’t address the town clerk position.

The reason he only included the treasurer’s position in the article, he said, is because he read in the statute that selectmen can appoint a town clerk.

Resident Denise Rodzen said that in Livermore Falls people elect the town clerk.

Towns are moving to appointed treasurers so selectmen have more control over the process and can hire a qualified person, Selectman Bill Demaray.

It has nothing to do with the treasurer’s performance, Demaray said.

Flagg has been elected to the positions for nearly two decades.

Budget Committee Chairwoman Louise Chabot said she spoke to Flagg and she said she doesn’t have a problem with a change in the process. She has mixed feelings on both ways, Chabot said.

At one time, the two positions were elected separately and then they were combined, resident Cora Briggs said.

Overall, the proposed $2.5 million 2007-08 municipal spending plan is more than the $2.38 million budget approved last year because it factors in revenues, but the amount to be raised by taxation is $2.36 million, $12,652 less than last year, Puckett said.