The proposed $8.8 million Gardiner city budget is up 4% over the current year, but is nearly $600,000 less than the initial budget requested by city department heads that would have been an 11% increase.

While not including school or county taxes, the budget, according to Denise Brown, the city’s finance director and interim city manager, would increase the tax rate, which is currently $26.30 for every $1,000 of value, by 60 cents. The budget based upon department head requests, before cuts proposed by Brown, would have increased that rate by $2 per $1,000.

“We all knew that wasn’t going to happen,” Brown said of the initial $9.3 million budget request from department heads. “So we reviewed it, and thought outside the box, to see what we can do to get that increase down.”

The budget presented by Brown to city councilors Wednesday night does not include funding for two additional firefighter/paramedic positions requested by Fire Chief Rick Sieberg to help staff the city’s fire department and regional ambulance service. That change, Brown said, cut $54,000 from the fire department budget, and reduces Gardiner’s share of the regional ambulance service, which also services seven other surrounding communities, by $38,000.

The budget also cuts $441,000 from the public works department’s initial request, with specific cuts within that including $225,000 for sidewalk replacement, $50,000 to pave the Gardiner Main Street parking lot and $50,000 for paving of the Arcade parking lot project.

Brown said the police department is responsible for 67% of the budget increase, due to an additional floating officer position, at a cost of about $110,000, as well as increases in health insurance costs within the department. The budget also includes $69,000 in funding to purchase and set up a new police cruiser.

Brown said the additional floating police officer position is expected to reduce overtime within the department, both saving funds and enhancing other officers’ well-being by reducing the amount of overtime they have to work.

Wednesday’s budget presentation marks the start of the city council’s involvement in the budget process. Councilors will now have weekly meetings to review details of the budgets for each department, then vote on the budget in June.

The proposed budget would use $500,000 from the city’s fund balance, an account generally made up of funds unspent in previous years. Brown said the fund was just recently audited and has $3.2 million. Taking $500,000 from that account would leave it well within the range auditors recommend be kept in such accounts for unanticipated expenses, she said.

The budget would provide $2.2 million for wastewater projects and expenses, a $103,000, or 4.8%, increase.

Brown said that will necessitate a 5% sewer rate increase.

The city is under requirements to upgrade the system from the state Department of Environmental Protection as part of the licensing for the city’s wastewater treatment plant, which discharges into the Kennebec River. The approved plan for those upgrades includes about $7 million worth of projects, with a timeline set by DEP for their completion.

Brown said the first project will be upgrades to the sewer system on Spring Street. She said the estimated cost of fully remediating Spring Street was $3.6 million, but further investigation indicated the street may be addressed in a less costly manner, maybe as little as $250,000.

“That made my heart sing, that’s a lot better than $3.6 million,” Brown said.

She said that project would get $100,000 in this year’s budget and another $100,000 the following year and likely take place in the summer of 2027 and would keep the city compliant with the DEP.