Paris residents will be presented with a $6.46 million budget at the June 15 annual town meeting.

The town meeting is scheduled to start at 6 p.m. in the auditorium at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School, 256 Main St., South Paris.

The proposed spending plan is $26,410 less than last year, which was slashed by $1.2 million by voters frustrated with ever-increasing costs of services and perceived indifference by the select board and budget committee.

This year, Town Manager Natalie Andrews’ budget proposes restoring the town clerk and code officer positions. They were cut from full time to 24 hours a week and led to longtime clerk Elizabeth Knox retiring.

This year’s proposal includes a savings of more than $90,000 due to retired debt service.

A bigger cut is slated for the Norway-Paris Solid Waste facility budget, the transfer station the two towns share. During last month’s budget hearing, members of the budget committee defended that decision by citing a number of concerns it has about the facility’s financial management, such as failure to complete its annual accounting audits and using operating expense accounts to make capital purchases.

The Paris Police Department budget, a focus of much ire last year over the select board’s plans to expand it, is proposed for $20,280 less in 2026-27. The department continues to be a source of debate, with some citizens favoring its elimination and others determined to at least maintain the status quo.

The fire department budget is proposed to increase overall due to reclassifying some expenses as operational instead of capital improvements, as they had been in the past. 

But at the April 27 hearing, Chief Mark Blaquiere opposed the board’s and committee’s department payroll cuts. Those decisions are a result of lower year-to-date salary expenses and the impression that emergency calls were declining.

Blaquiere said the call data was incorrect. While the budget committee was working with statistics that showed calls were down, the chief said that instead of the annual total of 135 on which they were basing personnel needs, it averages about 40 a month.

The committee and select board have also allocated funds in Blaquiere’s budget from what they saw as payroll savings for an engineering inspection of the fire station, which is in need of substantial repairs and maintenance.

During the hearing, two options were presented in the event the fire department runs over budget on salaries in the future. The first would be for voters to approve a higher fire-rescue budget during town meeting. If the current budget proposal passes, the alternative will be to call a special town meeting when and if expenses exceed the budget, and refund it midway through the year.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to say that the town meeting will be held in the auditorium at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School, 256 Main St., South Paris.

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