Lisbon council aims to conclude budget work

LISBON

After many budget meetings and workshops, the Town Council tonight will consider adopting a $7,361,251 municipal budget for fiscal year 2012-13.

The meeting will start at 7 p.m. at the town office.

The proposed $7.36 million budget represents a 6.16 percent — or $427,231 increase — over the 2011-12 municipal budget.

It also reflects a decrease from the budget discussed at a May 8 public hearing. That budget contained a $702,294 — or 10.13 percent — increase. At that meeting, several residents who spoke took issue with the 2 percent salary increases included in that earlier draft budget at a time when taxpayers are not seeing pay increases.

Town Manager Steve Eldridge said Monday that the council hasn’t made any decisions regarding pay increases. He noted that the town is headed into contract negotiations with the four unions representing town employees in the next couple of weeks, so money has been budgeted but no final decisions have been made. One option that may be discussed, Eldridge suggested, is a onetime bonus instead of a wage increase. Whatever happens through negotiations, it will be done across the board, Eldridge said.

Summarizing some of the budget impacts, Eldridge said the proposed budget includes an additional $5,000 for the contingency fund. The council reduced its request for paving from $250,000 to $120,000 to be put aside if necessary. Any of the money not used would be carried to the following fiscal year.

The council reduced the amount of funds initially budgeted for professional development, as well as the money for capital projects. Instead, town officials budgeted for a single trash trailer, dump body and replacement of one police cruiser — when purchase of two of each of these items was in earlier renditions of the budget, Eldridge said. Additionally the town would not fill a vacant position in the public works department.

According to Eldridge, Lisbon will see a projected decrease of $10,000 in municipal revenue sharing from the state — which in the last four or five years has dropped from $1.2 million to $820,000.

Generally the excise tax rate has been flat or down from previous years, and the town is trying to use less money from the undesignated fund balance to offset the need to raise property taxes. Meanwhile for the coming fiscal year health care went up 8 percent, gasoline rose since last year, workers comp went up as did unemployment and the town’s contribution to Maine State Retirement. Its cost for Lisbon Connection went up by $9,000 and its cost for solid waste disposal rose too.

Eldridge said the council has met almost every Tuesday since March to work on the budget.

“The council worked really hard on this,” he said. “They went through line by line and asked a lot of questions, and we came back probably three or four times with recommendations to them to try to cut the budget more, but their concern was our infrastructure.”

The budget up for approval tonight would trigger no changes in service levels and no loss of jobs, according to Eldridge.

The council will go through and vote tonight department by department. The budget advisory committee will attend to make its recommendations as well.

At its previous meeting, the council unanimously approved the 2012-13 school budget of $14,156,478 — an increase of 2.9 percent from 2011-12.

With a townwide revaluation ongoing, Eldridge said it has been hard to estimate the projected tax rate increase, but with a current tax rate of $21 per $1,000 of assessed value, he said the town is looking at somewhere around a $1.40 increase — or $140 for a home valued at $100,000.

The council has several items to address before considering a vote on the municipal budget, including two public hearings. The first is on a victualer’s license for Vera Abdullah doing business as Taste of Lil’ Russia.

The second is on the proposed CDBG Public Service Grant application for the establishment of a business or career center at the public library. The council will consider endorsing and authorizing the application. The CDBG grant is for $19,000, and the total project cost is $28,100. Lisbon’s match would be $9,100, with $1,700 to come from the 2012-13 library facility budget and $7,400 from the 2012-13 library director’s salary for program administration costs.

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