RUMFORD — The proposed municipal budget for 2016-27 includes less for capital projects in order to keep spending down and because new taxable value is coming online April 1, Town Manager George O’Keefe said.

The nearly $13.16 million spending plan is $697,000 more — a 5.59% increase — than this year’s nearly $12.64 million, O’Keefe said.

The finance committee voted 5-2 on March 12 to approve the town manager’s request to cut capital spending by $392,500, from $764,500 to $372,000.

“We’re slowing down the pace of our capital spending for a year,” O’Keefe said, noting officials want to deliver the best possible budget and “we have a very substantial amount of new taxable value coming online as of April 1, 2026.”

“We think this is only a one-year measure,” he said. “It doesn’t seem appropriate to me at this time to go out and raise capital funding for accounts that are already funded with all reasonable foreseeable needs for the future.”

The finance committee was less sure, O’Keefe said

“They had concerns about whether or not we would fall behind, whether or not we had some essential equipment that might put us in a bad financial position at some point in the future,” he said.

He said he made it clear to the committee that he doesn’t intend to recommend this type of a capital budget again next year.

“I anticipate we’ll have more than enough of a tax base coming online this year and next year to fully fund our capital programs going forward.”

He cited several situations that have available financing to meet needs.

“For example, town hall capital, we have almost two or three years of that funding set aside in certificates of deposit,” O’Keefe said. “There’s numerous capital accounts which are very well funded. Then parks and recreation, why would we put away capital money when we think we’re about to get a substantial reimbursement from FEMA, which could leave the parks’ capital account fully funded, with them having fully-funded capitalized equipment?”

Asked about the new ladder truck coming in the future, O’Keefe said funding for it “does not hit until 2027-28, and even that might be too soon. Depending on how the financing goes, we might be as far out as 2028-29 on the first payment for a ladder truck.”

Speaking about the budget’s impact on the property tax rate, the town manager said, “We have no real sense of how this is going to hit the (property tax) rate.” There is a possibility it could increase slightly or not change at all, he said.

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