POWNAL – Pownal residents will head to the Pownal Elementary School on Monday, June 17, at 7 p.m., for the annual town meeting to decide the fate of a $3,106,292 budget, a $183,652 increase from this year’s municipal spending plan of $2,922,640.

According to Pownal Administrative Assistant Scott Seaver, the fiscal year 2013-2014 budget would result in a 6.58 percent increase in property taxes for the roughly 1,500 residents of the town, if approved. That increase includes the anticipated approval of the Regional School Unit 5 budget.

Of the 26 articles listed on the warrant, only one is expected to draw any, if little, debate. Article 4 asks Pownal residents to formally adopt and enforce the Maine Uniform and Energy Code. According to Pownal Selectman Alfred Fauvrer, because of legislation three years ago, Pownal no longer has a building code.

“In a nutshell, the Legislature decreed that if there was going to be a building code then it would have to be uniform,” said Fauvrer. “The Legislature mandated that towns over 4,000 residents had to adopt and enforce it. Towns under that threshold could decide if they wanted to adopt it or not. We’re not required to or else we wouldn’t have to adopt it. There’s no such thing as a homegrown building code in Maine anymore. Either you adopt it or you don’t have one.”

According to state information, the rule involves four codes, the International Residential Code, the International Building Code, the International Existing Building Code and the International Energy Conservation Code. Building codes are a set of standards established and enforced by local government for the structural safety of buildings, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, one of myriad government agencies that can enforce building codes.

If approved, there would be $15,324 increase in funding for general government and $67,000 increase in the capital accounts from the 2012-2013 budget.

“It (the increase in general government) had to do with bookkeeping,” said Fauvrer. “We used to have a line for payroll taxes, but we’re not carrying that as a separate line now and have shifted the cost into the general fund.”

The bump in capital accounts is an anticipated increase in the first year of a three-year spending plan that includes town infrastructure improvement projects.

“The capital committee has gone through a long process, which they’ve been frustrated with,” said Seaver. “If they wanted to fund everything that was on the plan, that would have been up around $300,000, but they’ve cut it back to cover the first year of a three-year plan.”

The proposed cost of the town’s Public Works Department is down $20,073, due to an agreement between Durham and Pownal to share the cost of a road commissioner, Shawn Bennett, said Seaver. Durham residents recently approved the creation of a town-run Public Works department, but Bennett is expected to maintain his dual role in the coming fiscal year.

“We are netting out the contribution Durham is giving us back,” said Seaver. “We’re budgeting for a salary amount and Durham is picking up 60 percent of that, so we’ve only got 40 percent of it in here, which is a big difference the way we budgeted last year,” said Seaver, referring to the 2012-2013 Public Works cost of $601,432.

Per the charter that governs the town, the annual town meeting began on Tuesday with a municipal election to elect one selectman to a three -year term, a director for the Regional School Unit 5 Board, and a cemetery commissioner. The elections took place after the Tri-Town Weekly’s deadline. A moderator was chosen who will preside over the second part of the town meeting on Monday.

“The meetings usually last for a couple or three hours,” said Seaver.

If a nearly $26 million Regional School Unit 5 budget is approved by the tri-town voting bloc of Durham, Pownal and Freeport in a budget validation referendum Tuesday.

Though Fauvrer admits the turnout can be light for the town meeting, he believes it’s a still relevant and the purest form of democracy.

“Unfortunately most of the decisions are made by only 50 or 60 people,” said Fauvrer. “I think the town-meeting style of government is the most intimate style of government there is. Every person in town has a say. It’s not a representative situation, where a board will elect someone to go before city council or a congressional district will elect someone to represent a half a million people. Everyone in town should come and have a say. You can’t get any more personal than that.”