AUBURN — For Androscoggin County government, 2012 will be a year of change.

Plans include elections, decisions on the future of the aging courthouse and the emergency dispatch center, and a countywide vote over a new charter that would change the way county government operates.

It all begins Wednesday with a vote on the nearly $10 million budget and a new commissioner, Beth Bell of Auburn. The 51-year-old Realtor was sworn in Dec. 30. She represents Auburn, Poland, Minot and Mechanic Falls on the three-member commission.

Plans call for Bell to sit for a series of informal briefings.

“It’s tough times,” Bell said. “Budget issues are extremely difficult for everyone. I have a lot of information to go over and be prepared for this coming year.”

Chairman Randall Greenwood said Friday that he, too, expects the year to be extraordinarily busy. After the budget passes, he expects the first priority to be settling the dispatching issue, he said Friday with Bell at his side. The third commissioner, Elaine Makas, was vacationing in Florida.

“Dispatching is going to be the biggest discussion of the new year,” Greenwood said.

The county answers 911 calls for most of its 14 towns and dispatches for its own deputies as well as several local agencies. For years, the issue has been studied and analyzed. However, pressure is building for the county to decide whether the center should be merged with Lewiston-Auburn 911 or Lisbon’s dispatch center or continue on at the county with much-needed new equipment. The decision could have a dramatic impact on county tax bills, with the cities of Lewiston and Auburn seeing annual dividends of hundreds of thousands of dollars in a merger with the L-A system and increased costs to the smaller towns.

Commissioners had tried to pass the issue to the county’s Budget Committee, but the group declined to approve any investment in the current center unless the commissioners first make a decision.

“We certainly have an ailing and aging dispatch center that is far beyond its life expectancy,” Greenwood said. “If we can’t do it here, we will look at other options.”

Following closely on the county agenda will be a discussion of the Civil War-era courthouse.

In 2011, the commission hired a pair of consultants — Harriman and Ricci Greene Associates — to give the building a top-to-bottom analysis and shepherd the county through the process of permitting and finding a contractor.

But when the analysis came back with a project costing at least $34 million, commissioners sent the consultants back for a smaller plan. Voters would not approve it, nor should they, Greenwood said.

“I, as a commissioner, am not going to put it out to referendum,” he said.

Instead, he asked a less open-ended question of the consultants.

“What does $10 million get you?” he said.

Greenwood plans to schedule another meeting with the consultants as soon as all three commissioners are available.

By June, two other issues are likely to be drawing attention. One is the election of two-thirds of the commission. Though neither have announced whether they will seek election, terms for the seats held by Greenwood and Bell will be up. Party candidates will be chosen in the June primary.

Also on the ballot will be a proposed charter that would change the structure of county government.

The document is being finalized in the coming days, Richard Grandmaison, vice chairman of the elected charter commission, said.

Its provisions are slated to include a full-time county administrator who would absorb the administrative duties now performed by the commission and expanding the commission to seven members.

If the charter passes, countywide elections would be held in 2013 to choose seven commissioners, each representing a smaller district.

In an effort to promote the proposed charter, members of the charter commission plan to visit each municipality in the county, attending annual town meetings as well as meetings with selectmen and councilors.

First, the county commission must pass its budget.

The discussion at Wednesday’s meeting, scheduled for 1:30 p.m., is likely to last only a few minutes, Greenwood said. He believes each line item of the spending package, totaling $9,992,749, has been carefully examined by both the commission and the county Budget Committee, which completed its work on Dec. 28.

The proposal calls for a total of $8,007,904 to be raised by taxation, a 2.47 percent increase over 2011.

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