Jay Fire Rescue Chief Mike Booker, right, with Jay Town Manager Shiloh LaFreniere, explains Wednesday his proposed spending plan for 2025-26 to the Select Board and the Budget Committee at Spruce Mountain Elementary School in Jay. Donna M. Perry/Sun Jouranal

JAY — The proposed $6.7 million municipal budget for 2025-26 includes proposals for a per diem firefighter on weekends and a new reserve account for the library.

Edward Walsh, a member of the Jay Budget Committee, listens Wednesday to an answer to his question from a department head during a Jay budget workshop at Spruce Mountain Elementary School in Jay. Donna M. Perry/Sun Journal

The overall proposal is up $583,292.36. A conservative estimate of nearly $3.5 million in revenue, drops the proposed 9.5% increase to nearly $3.3 million, which is $38,165.64 or 1.15% less than the current budget.

Town Manager Shiloh LaFreniere said previously that the major increases in the proposal includes 16% more for property and casualty insurance, and higher personnel and benefits amounts to keep the town competitive in the employment market.

The budget does not include Regional School Unit 73 that serves children in Jay, Livermore and Livermore Falls.

The Select Board and the Budget Committee are expected to vote on a budget at 5 p.m. Monday in the gymnasium at Spruce Mountain Elementary School at 12 Tiger Drive.

The proposed spending for the Fire Rescue Department is $433,677, which includes having one per diem firefighter to work 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Two per diem firefighters work 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.

There are 30 members of the department including seven per diem staff and two junior firefighters, Chief Mike Booker said.

The small department is getting busier and busier every year, he said, and the majority of firefighters work out of town. In 2024, the department had 423 calls.

Booker is a full-time firefighter at Mexico Fire Department.

The cost for weekend day coverage is set at $16,000, he said. The majority of the department’s budget increase is because the minimum wage went up. There is also $75,000 proposed for equipment or vehicles if needed. Booker has been successful in grant writing in the past and recently the department was awarded funds for a rescue boat, engine and trailer from the Stephen and Tabatha King Foundation.

If the proposal for weekend coverage is not accepted, the budget would be $417,442.

Budget Committee member Mike Ventrella questioned overall wage increases of 5% to 7% in the departments. He said Social Security increases were much less than that.

Selectperson Lee Ann Dalessandro said the board is in negotiations with three unions for public works, sewer and Transfer Station, police and Town Office staff. The current contracts expire June 30.  They don’t know what the final increase in wages will be, she said.

Ventrella asked the board to keep the increase less than the 5% to 7%.

The Jay-Niles Memorial Library budget, which is $91,544.36, a nearly 46% increase, includes a first-time contribution of $25,000 for a reserve account, library Director Tamara Hoke said, who has been with the library for 19 years. It also includes about a 20% increase in wages for staff, who mostly have made minimum wage, she said, and haven’t received a pay increase in years.

There are six employees; she is the only one full-time.

She has never taken health insurance before because her partner who is now retired, carried the health insurance.

The library is overseen by a board of trustees, which sets employee wages.

The library has a 40-year-old boiler and an aging elevator, which has regular maintenance. It is requesting a reserve account to save for a future expense.

The library has an endowment with about $185,000 in it, and Hoke and trustees don’t want to continue to draw it down too much because they have relied on it for several annual expenses in past years, she said.