FARMINGTON — Town meeting will be held 7 p.m. Monday, March 25, in the Bjorn Auditorium at Mt. Blue High School on the Seamon Road.

Town Manager Erica LaCroix said the proposed $11.87 million budget is up 4% or $461,063 over the current spending plan of about $11.41 million. “The projected mil rate, which we won’t know until commitment time is 0.76 mils which brings us up to $20.67 [per $1,000 valuation].”

The article on the Legal Reserve Account was amended by selectmen at the March 12 meeting, LaCroix noted. “It was strictly a typo,” she stated. “It should be $14,000 instead of $9,000.”

At the March 12 meeting LaCroix said $9,000 was the increase being asked for over the 2023 budget. “We are $9,000 in the hole as of the end of 2023 and we normally put $5,000 in, so the total appropriation was supposed to say $14,000. That is what it says in the budget but I misprinted it on the warrant. It really needs to be $14,000.”

LaCroix said she looked at the wrong column when she originally did the warrant.

This year some capital reserve accounts have been pulled out of department budgets and put into a separate category. “That is because capital by its very definition is capital, it is not operating,” she explained. “It is moneys that are set aside for replacements or major expenditures, so rather than have those sitting in the operating budget, that is not where they belong, I just moved them to capital.

“It is really only moving them from one place to another, not really changing the overall appropriations for the budget but reclassifying them to their appropriate category.”

Under the statement of fact for the Police Department budget, expansion of services for animal control is mentioned. “The actual amount we budgeted for that did not change,” LaCroix noted. “We did move it from one line item to another. It was sitting in the administrative salary budget, we moved it to the part-time budget. We were also paying for that on a stipend basis and now the person that is doing those duties is a true part-time employee as well as doing all the parking enforcement. I don’t think there is real substantive change there.”

Another article asks voters to accept the dedication of Stone Hill Drive and waiver of damages made by Vining Land Development, LLC, establishing a town way on Stone Hill Drive. “They are holding the town harmless for anything that is wrong with the road if we accept it,” LaCroix said.

Select Chair Matthew Smith said there are no major expenses in the proposed budget. “I don’t see any major issues or concerns,” he noted. “I think this is a good, sound budget.”

The county budget is known to be going up, it is expected the school budget will go up, he said. “That will affect us down the road,” he noted.

Smith expected town meeting to be fairly smooth sailing. “Once again our biggest expense will be with the Highway Department, but it is with our roads program,” he stated. “That seems to be going along fine. We are seeing great results.”

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