DIXFIELD – If voters approve all selectmen-recommended money articles at Thursday’s annual town meeting, the municipal budget figure will be just over $2 million, below the state’s mandated tax cap. The tax rate would likely rise about $1.50 per $1,000 valuation to about $29.50.

The budget proposed by selectmen, which agrees with the Finance Committee sometimes and is either slightly above or slightly below it in other instances, would be about 3.5 percent over the this year’s operating budget.

The tax increase would happen partly because Town Manager Tom Richmond will recommend against using about $100,000 in undesignated funds to offset property taxes. Each dollar on the tax rate is equal to $81,000 in spending in Dixfield.

“My theory is undesignated funds should never be used for year-to-year operations,” Richmond said Tuesday afternoon.

He said such money, if used at all, should go to one-time capital projects.

One of the 37 town meeting warrant articles asks for approval to take $100,000 from the undesignated balance to offset taxes.

He said with tax bills starting to be paid in mid-September, and the fiscal year ending on June 30, along with several departmental overdrafts this year, taking money from the undesignated funds could lead to the need for a tax anticipation note, and that would cost the town interest.

Among the differences between the selectmen’s recommendation and that of the Finance Committee is a request for a fifth police officer and an additional public works employee by the committee. Selectmen recommended appropriating $2,000 more for the River Valley Growth Council as well as money for about a dozen social service requests.

Besides money articles, voters will elect five Finance Committee members, four Water Advisory Committee members, and one member each to the Ludden Memorial Library Trustees and Ione Harlow Scholarship Committee. Selectmen and SAD 21 school board members are elected on June 12.

Residents will also act on a request to accept a road known as Rocky Ridge where Norman and Donna Towle have a 10-lot subdivision of about 32 acres located off Holt Hill Road.

A revised comprehensive plan to update the nearly 20-year-old town document will be acted on, as will a request to authorize selectmen to temporarily use undesignated funds for any costs incurred by a federally declared disaster. All reimbursements from the Federal Emergency Management Agency would be returned to the undesignated funds.

Richmond said the town expects to receive about $50,000 from FEMA as a result of the Patriot’s Day storm.