BATH — Residents told the Bath City Council on Wednesday that the $14.79 million municipal budget proposed for fiscal year 2012-13 includes several unacceptable cuts, including the elimination of one of three ambulances and the dissolution of the call — or volunteer — fire department.

But City Manager Bill Giroux told them the council made “very difficult cuts” following an April vote by the local school district to change its cost-sharing formula.

The proposed municipal budget of $14,787,678 reflects an increase of $674,096 over 2011-12, and would contribute — along with increased city and school costs — to a 5.16 percent overall property tax increase, based upon a 1.97 percent increase in the municipal budget, a 0.52 percent increase ($85,826) in the city’s share of the Sagadahoc County budget and a 2.67 percent increase ($438,104) in Regional School Unit 1 costs.

The bulk of the municipal increase — approximately $470,000 — stems from a nearly 41 percent increase in employee benefits. Finance Director Juli Millett said the city has not previously paid in to the Maine State Retirement System (MSRS) because the city had a credit, but that starting in fiscal year 2013, the city would have to resume payments to MSRS because Bath withdrew approximately $9 million and invested it.

Call department

Former Bath Fire Chief Norman Kenney pleaded with city councilors not to cut the remaining $9,500 in the fire department’s budget for training and uniforms for the call department — which would essentially eliminate the call department altogether.

“I am very concerned, as a former chief and as a citizen of Bath, because there are only four or five (firefighters) on at a time,” Kenney said of the paid fire department. He said homeowners insurance rates in the city will increase when companies realize how few firefighters are on duty at any given time, telling councilors, “You’re going to pay more in insurance — your rates are going to go sky high.” David Sinclair said the call department had been “characterized to us as rapidly dying of attrition … and onerous training requirements,” and that the council saw “a clear decision … that this was a program that was destined to fail.”

Still, he asked Giroux to return to the council prior to its June 6 meeting, at which the council is expected to approve the budget, with more information about what the consequences of disbanding the call fire department might have on insurance rates.

Ambulance

Mark Wood, secretary and treasurer of Bath Firefighters Local 1611, told the council that another cost-saving measure — to sell one of the city’s three ambulances — would increase response time and hinder the city’s ability to fulfill its mutual aid agreement with Brunswick.

Giroux said today that his initial budget suggested maintaining the third ambulance until it was due for replacement in two years, but not replacing it — at a cost of approximately $150,000 — at that time.

Instead, councilors have proposed selling the vehicle and have included the approximately $10,000 in revenue that could result from its sale in this year’s proposed budget.

But Wood told them that the ambulance in question is equipped with a bariatric stretcher system that allows rescue workers to safely lift patients who weigh more than 500 pounds.

“That system … protects us as firefighters,” he said.

Sinclair said councilors had been reviewing the budget at workshops since April, and wondered why firefighters hadn’t attended to object previously, but Wood said they only became aware of the proposal within the last few weeks.

Among other objections to the proposed budget, Stanley Bruce Fossett of Pine Hill Drive said the council was obligated to remediate “intolerable” flooding in his neighborhood, which he said was triggered after the city gave Hyde School permission to build a new gymnasium five years ago.

However, Sinclair said that while Councilor Andy Paulhus argued in favor of the city funding work in that area, “it was not the will of the council.”

Councilors also voted 7-1, with Councilor Kyle Rogers opposed, to approve a supplemental appropriation of $526,000 for the fiscal year that begins July 1

The measure is not designed to give the city $526,000 more to spend in 2012-13, Giroux said. Rather, the appropriation represents the gap between what the city proposes to spend and the amount allowed by the city’s unique spending cap.

Rogers objected to what he said was a “method to get around what the citizens of Bath wanted to do 20 years ago.”

The council will meet at 6:01 p.m. on June 6 to consider first passage of the proposed budget.

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