Clinton residents will vote on a combined $28.3 million town and school budget during a voting referendum on Tuesday, June 14.

Residents will also vote on whether to raise the property tax levy limit by $250,000. The limit increase is a safeguard in case the budget requires a tax commitment greater than the current property tax levy limit.

For the last few years the town, to help balance the tax commitment, has used the undesignated fund balance, which is separate from the budget and is supposed to hold enough funds to maintain town operations for a few months.

“We can’t continue to do that because we need to maintain reserve funds,” Town Manager Pamela Violette said last week. However, the town will use the undesignated fund balance for any costs that exceed the $250,000 increase.

Violette couldn’t say if the tax rate would increase or decrease because the town’s assessor is working on a revaluation of the community.

The proposed town budget of $2.48 million is a $210,662 increase from last year’s.

This less than 1 percent increase is mainly because of a 1.73 percent salary increase for town employees, a 1.02 percent increase in town insurance costs and an increase in snowplowing funds, as the town’s current contract ends this month and it has to put out a new bid for the service, Violette said. The total set aside for snowplowing this year is $289,075.

Residents will also vote on School Administrative District 49’s proposed budget of $25.8 million, which is up 1.27 percent from last year’s. Albion, Benton and Fairfield are also members of SAD 49.

The increase in the total budget is mainly because of inflation, contracted increases in salaries and increased health insurance costs, SAD 49 Superintendent Dean Baker said in a phone interview.

However, the cost to the town of Clinton is actually decreasing by $19,211, Baker said.

Voters will also decide on whether to give $150,000 to the town’s reserve fund for paving and road reconstruction. Last year the town voted to raise $200,000 to go toward road bond payments. The town is still making payments, and this is additional funding for the project, Violette said.

Last June voters rejected the town’s police department budget 150-140. The budget eventually passed in a referendum in August after debates and a special town meeting. This year the proposed budget is $243,160, an increase of 0.62 percent from last year’s budget that was initially rejected. Town officials said they haven’t seen any indication that the budget won’t pass this year.

Madeline St. Amour – 861-9239

mstamour@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @madelinestamour

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