MECHANIC FALLS – Voters at Saturday’s town meeting will be asked to approve school and municipal budgets totaling about $6.8 million.

If the budget requests pass as proposed, property taxes will rise about 30 cents, Town Manager John Hawley said.

“The Budget Committee, the council and school board members made a conscious effort to keep in mind what people are dealing with, yet people want to have their roads plowed, sanded and repaired, and they should be,” Hawley said.

He estimated that the present tax rate of $18.90 per $1,000 of assessed property value could rise to about $19.20.

The cost of energy is the prime culprit.

The public works department budget, proposed at $285,000, is up $34,000 over this year’s, with fuel, salt and sand prices leading the way.

The fuel line looms large in the $80,500 budget for the municipal buildings complex, up nearly $9,000.

The town welfare budget request, which mainly goes toward fuel and electricity bills, is about doubled, going from $7,425 up to $14,595.

Anticipating the effects of countywide emergency dispatch service consolidation, the request for dispatch is going from $4,240 to $10,630.

About the only request going down is that for debt service, sliding from $158,935 to $156,424. However that trend isn’t expected to continue.

“The road bond has two years to go but by then we’ll need to do another bond. Road maintenance is falling behind and some are in serious disrepair,” explained Hawley.

The Budget Committee is recommending approval of all municipal budget requests as presented, as well as the amounts on all school budget warrant articles as presented by the School Committee.

While the $4,681,916 total school budget is nearly $39,000 lower than this year’s, the amount that would be paid by local property taxes is only down about $6,000.

The school budget reduction was achieved by eliminating three positions, two by attrition, at the Elm Street School.

Two teachers, one at the primary level and the other at the middle school level, are retiring this year and will not be replaced.

The guidance counselor will be let go, with the duties of that position being picked up by the principal, assistant principal and the school social worker.

Also built into the budget, Principal Mary Martin explained, are greater than usual raises for school staff, a step toward bringing salaries closer to what Poland staff is paid in preparation for the three Union 29 towns joining under one contract in a new regional school unit.

The town meeting will begin at 9 a.m. in the Municipal Gymnasium on the lower floor of the town office building on Lewiston Street.