Litchfield voters at Saturday’s Town Meeting agreed to spend nearly a half million dollars on road repairs this year.

The $2.2 million town budget for the 2015-16 fiscal year is up $320,000 from this year’s total, largely because of the extra $200,000 residents agreed to spend on road work next year. That total, which is a 17 percent increase, is not as much as selectmen and road committee members had recommended, but it’s enough to begin fixing the town’s troubled roads while getting engineers to help plan future spending, Town Manager Trudy Lamoreau said.

“It’s a good start,” she said.

The meeting, which lasted a little more than three hours, drew about 90 people, many of whom Lamoreau believes were spurred to attend by the request for additional road money.

“I think that’s what brought people in,” she said. “That was better than the last several years.”

About 18 miles of the 29 miles of roads the town maintains need either routine or preventive care, which means everything from shoulder work and crack sealing to shim paving and ditch and culvert maintenance. The remaining roads need major overhauls, from additional gravel and pavement to additional culverts and base excavation.

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The town’s road committee, which has spent the past year studying the roads, has a 10-year plan to spend $7 million to improve all the roads to a point that they would require only routine maintenance. With that in mind, selectmen asked for an additional $400,000 this year to go with the $210,000 voters have agreed to raise each of the last few years to begin the major upgrading. Officials have said much of that money would be spent on engineering to help guide future work.

Voters on Saturday spent considerable time discussing the town’s plan, Lamoreau said. The crowd ultimately agreed to cut the additional funding in half, which still will give the town a total of $410,000 to spend on road repair. Voters also agreed to allow the money to be spent on improvements rather than limiting the funding to paving alone.

“It was a good discussion,” Lamoreau said.

Voters also agreed to add $2,000 to fix Woodbury Pond Dam, bringing to $9,100 the total to be spent on dam repair, including fixes to the New Mills Dam.

The final town budget will increase taxes from $14.25 to $15.55 per $1,000 of valuation. That means a person who owns a $150,000 home will see his or her property taxes increase from $2,138 to $2,333.

That figure, Lamoreau cautioned, does not include the Regional School Unit 4 budget, which voters failed to ratify during voting on June 9. The rejected budget would have increased $705,000 to nearly $19 million. Litchfield’s share of that budget would have been $3.6 million, or $451,000 more than this year. The budget proposal passed in Wales but failed in Litchfield and Sabattus.

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The RSU’s budget process now will start over with the establishment of a new budget that will go to voters for ratification.

Craig Crosby — 621-5642

ccrosby@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @CraigCrosby4


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