MECHANIC FALLS — The Town Council on Monday unanimously approved 31 warrant articles, including spending $3.59 million for the 2024-25 fiscal year. It is $16,000 less than this year’s budget of $3.61 million.
The Budget Committee endorsed the articles.
Town Manager Vic Hodgkins gave a brief summary of each expenditure at the public hearing before the council’s vote.
He noted that that $73,249 was reduced in debt service, $49,000 was cut in the capital improvements line, and pensions and insurance decreased by $17,701.
The budget includes a 3% cost-of-living increase and wage adjustments for employees and an increase of $12,453 in the county tax line.
The capitol improvement reserve account will have $505,000, which will be used for road and sidewalk improvements, equipment and vehicles.
In other business, the council approved a letter of resolution to be sent to Rep. Jared Golden to gain his support for the Community Project Funding grant application request by the Mechanic Falls Water Department. The request is to replace the 130-year-old water main on Libby Road.
According to the letter, this upgrade “will eliminate the use of cast-iron piping with lead joints” and will reroute the water main out of a swamp and floodplain and be more environmentally friendly. This main line feeds the main reservoir rank that holds almost 500,000 gallons.
Depending on the time of year, a full reservoir tank will hold about 2 to 3 days use.
The letter states, “should this main break, we would have an extremely limited amount of time to make the repairs before the towns of both Mechanic Falls and Poland would be without water.”
In addition, the council approved the purchase of a plow truck cab and chassis from O’Connor Motor Co. for $75,679.
The council also approved spending $96,865 for plow equipment for the truck from Viking-Cives pending approval of the budget on June 11.
The last day for candidates for town offices to hand in signatures to be on the June 11 ballot is by 11:30 a.m. April 12.
The council has two openings; only incumbent Darrell Young has taken out papers.
Patrick Irish, Regional School Unit 16 director, has taken out papers for the one open seat.
Anthony Emery and Mark Gary have taken papers out for the two Sanitary District seats.
Cindy Larrabee was appointed to fill out Tarsha Downing’s seat on the council until the June 11 elections. Downing resigned last month.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.