The town council approved the budget on Tuesday, setting the stage for residents to approve or change the carefully-laid plans next month at the annual town meeting.

The current budget is $43.2 million. The municipal budget was approved at $13.97 million, a spending increase of 1.44 percent over last year and the school budget was $29.21 million, an increase of 4.3 percent.

Town Manager Tony Plante said his two biggest influences when balancing the budget were to provide about the current level of programs and services as last year and to comply with the property tax levy limits set by the state.

Social Services, set at $219,000 last year, saw an increase of about a quarter due to increases in financial assistance requests.. Some offices, such as that of the Town Clerks office that saw an increase of 4.5 percent, had increases that were explained as adjusting to the cost of living.

The county taxes have been set at $904,614. Last years county tax was $817,216, a 10.69 percent increase over last year.

Plante said the MIL rate, which will not be known until June, is expected to increased by less than 2 percent, a lower figure than what had been previously announced. The current rate is 11.3 percent. On a $200,000 house, the tax rate would go from $2,260 to $2,306 at the most.

Councilor Michael Shaughnessy made a successful motion to purchase rotary-drum composters for $2,000. The council agreed that the composters would pay for themselves by decreasing the amount of garbage disposal the town has to pay for by about $2,000.

Councilor David Tobin said paying for the composters would put the town over the property tax cap set by the state if they did not offset their cost with savings.

“That’s how close we are to the cap, ladies and gentlemen,” said Tobin.

The proposed budget will be voted on by the public at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 16 at the high school at the annual town meeting.