Staff Writer

Town Manager David Cole presented the Gorham Town Council with an $11.8 million budget for the upcoming year at Tuesday’s meeting.

The sum represents a $172,000 increase, or 1.5 percent, over last year’s budget.

Property taxes were expected to increase 3.1 percent to $4.54 per thousand dollars of value, up from $4.46 last year, meaning taxes on a property worth $250,000 would increase by $20.

The main cause of the higher budget was the $3 million bond for road improvements approved in a November referendum, Cole said. 

“That amounts to 21 cents on the tax rate and if it hadn’t been for that bond, the tax rate would actually have been down 13 cents in the town,” Cole said.

The budget was “very tight everywhere” and included very few increases, Cole said.

“The town’s department heads did a very good job of tightening up their own budgets individually. They all recognized this is a very difficult economy that we’re in, and their budgets reflect that,” Cole said.

The council will host at least two budget workshops before considering a vote on the budget. Cole said the process had been complicated this year by the state’s extended deliberations on the school district budget process. Gorham’s final budget – combining the town government’s budget with the school district’s – cannot be considered or voted on by the town council or residents until procedural rules are agreed upon by the state.

However, Cole estimated the council would have a workshop with the school board around April 20 to discuss the school district’s budget, and tentatively the council would vote on the combined budget at its June 3 meeting. A public referendum on the school budget, according to a new state law, must take place within 10 days of its passage; Cole predicted if the previous timetable were maintained, the referendum would take place June 10.

“The exact process is still unclear,” Cole said. “It would be nice to get this done along the lines of our normal schedule, but we have to wait on the state.”

Another large contributor to the budget increase was spending on the police department, which rose $108,000, or 6.2 percent, in large part due to an increase in the cost of the dispatching contract the town holds with the county, Cole said.

High and rising costs in gas, diesel and heating fuel, as well as higher paving prices, also contributed to the increase, Cole said.

“Every year feels like a tight year, but this was one of the most difficult budgets I’ve worked on in the last 30 years,” Cole said. “Usually there is one major obstacle to deal with, but this year we’ve had several – the economy, which appears to be in recession right now, this whole conundrum having to do with school consolidation, and the high rate of inflation reflected particularly in heating fuel and gasoline. I think we’re in a new era where costs of these increases are higher than we’re used to, higher than they have been in the past.”

Council Chairman Burleigh Loveitt said the council would take care in reviewing the budget, but that he was proud of the work Cole had done in producing a “reasonable” budget.

“Mr. Cole has been so careful and successful with this budget, I doubt the council will make any wholesale change,” Loveitt said. “He has done everything possible to avoid a tax increase this year and I think the council will do the same.”

The proposed budget represented, “a fine example of our fiscally conservative policy of management,” Loveitt said.

Cole said keeping in mind every dollar of taxes came out of residents’ pockets guided his process.

“We look at every item in the budget very carefully and treat the money our citizens trust to us with great care,” Cole said. “The council ultimately has to sit back and make a decision about how much the people in town can afford and what services are critical. It’s a difficult balancing act, determining the appropriate balance between what people want and what they can afford to pay, when everyone wants more and most people don’t want to pay for it.”