MECHANIC FALLS — For the first time in several years, the Town Council and the Budget Committee could not agree on the size of the municipal budget.

The council voted Wednesday to recommend $2.45 million for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

That’s the number that will go to voters at the June referendum. If it passes, property taxes on a house assessed at $100,000 will increase by about $146, Town Manager John Hawley estimated.

“We have problems with that much of an increase,” Budget Committee Chairman Bonnie Payette said.

She said the committee went through the budget, line by line, deciding which lines contained fixed or contractual items and which lines appeared to offer some flexibility.

“We went through, lines we thought we could cut we reduced by 8 percent,” Payette said.

The recommendations of both groups were in agreement in many instances: dispatch, auditor, assessor, town manager, welfare, utilities, county tax, solid waste and contingency, among others.

Recommendations of the two groups on the budgets for Public Works, the Police Department, the Fire Department, the library, legal services, town clerk and elections were not in agreement.

The council recommended $334,306 for Public Works; the Budget Committee recommended $307,562.

The council recommended $309,892 for the Police Department. The Budget Committee, questioning whether the department needed a fifth full-time officer, recommended $285,101.

When all of the budget lines were totaled and compared, the Budget Committee’s recommendations would reduce the overall municipal budget by $64,167.

The committee’s recommendations would increase taxes on a house assessed at $100,000 by about $42.

The council and the committee were in agreement on the need to purchase a new firetruck.

However, although the two groups made identical recommendations on the amounts that ought to be dedicated to capital improvement projects and put into reserve accounts for capital equipment purchases, the committee believed the town was under-budgeting both accounts.

“Considering the replacement schedule, this year we should be putting aside $318,000 as compared with the $187,000 that we are,” Payette said. “It is getting worse and worse; in another couple of years, this will bite us.”

Residents will vote on the 30 or so separate budget lines in a June 10 referendum.

Editor’s note: Town Manager John Hawley corrected the sum of the Budget Committee’s recommended cuts. The committee’s proposal would increase taxes on a house assessed at $100,000 by about $42, not $102 as originally reported.