TOPSHAM — Topsham voters approved a $12.7 million spending plan Wednesday at the annual town meeting, a 6.35% increase in spending that could hike the tax rate 8.4% when combined with the town’s school spending plan and county assessments.

Debate centered on new municipal staff positions, how to fix broken equipment and leaky roofs at municipal buildings and whether the town should spend $65,000 to build a gravel parking lot on Thomas Avenue for the town-owned athletic field.

It took 202 voters 3 1/2 hours to get through the 30-article warrant, which included changes to regulations on medical marijuana retail stores, the establishment of marijuana cultivation product manufacturing and testing facilities and requiring medical marijuana caregivers to register with the town. Voters approved those ordinances Wednesday.

An update to the comprehensive plan passed without any debate.

With the approved spending, the tax rate increase from $18.73 per $1,000 of assessed value to $20.31. The municipal budget accounts for 84 cents of the projected $1.58 tax rate increase. For a home valued at $200,000, the tax bill would increase $316 to $4,062. The final tax rate won’t be ironed out until August.

Selectmen added more staff into the 2019-20 budget, including a full-time employee to their one-person finance department and a full-time person in public works. Part-time positions at the parks and recreation department and the library will become full-time.

Selectmen also agreed to add a full-time paramedic who will double as a firefighter, and increase the nighttime EMS staff from two to three people.

That ensures there is a paramedic on every shift every day of the year, and a third person in the station at night to respond if a there is a second call or if the two people on the first call need assistance. According to Fire Chief Christopher McLaughlin, the department responded to 528 calls after 7 p.m. in 2018. He said 22% of those calls overlapped.

Phil Grubbs said his research on the budget shows the town’s tax rate increased an average of 4.1% every year for the last 10 years, double the rate of inflation. Adding the Sagadahoc County and School Administrative District 75 budgets would raise the tax rate by 8% or more.

SPENDING DEBATE

“What I would like to hear you tell us is what have you done to materially control and cut 2020 costs before you come forward with another large recommendation for a mil rate increase,” he said.

Selectman Dave Douglass said when he looks at a budget, he doesn’t look at the tax rate increase by percentage, but the overall numbers.

“I can tell you I spend days every morning early on weekends going line by line of every single line in this budget of every single budget,” he said. “I look at comparative cost for the past three or four years, and I look to what’s being requested.”

Douglass said selectmen meet with department heads and try to find a way to work with what they have, balancing the risks of holding off on budget increases.

“The things we’re adding as far as personnel and other things to this budget tonight, there’s not one item that couldn’t easily be justified five years ago,” said Selectman Bill Thompson.

While it is good the town is growing, it also means the town has to provide more services, he said.

“We’ve reached the point where we cannot say no. We cannot kick the can down the road,” Thompson said.

Residents spent more than an hour debating Article 4, containing the $1.29 million capital project fund — with $239,250 coming from taxes. The Finance Committee Co-Chairman Peter Richard made a motion to reduce the spending for this fund by $100,000 for the facility system replacement line.

Town Manager Rich Roedner said this would give the town money to replace significant items when the time came,  such as the furnace at Topsham Public Library that stopped working last winter. While the town has a capital plan anticipating the replacement of vehicles, it doesn’t have a capital reserve fund. This would create a capital reserve for town facilities.

“Most of the reasons that we feel have been cited for the need for this fund, as a committee, we think should be scheduled out in the capital plan,” Richard said on behalf of the Finance Committee. “We agree as a majority that the roofs and the furnaces have a shelf life, one that we can anticipate.”

Richard’s motion failed.

Voters approved the article as proposed, but only after a debate over the $65,000 budgeted for recreation facility improvements — either to build a parking lot off of Thomas Avenue for the upper Foreside Road athletic field or to improve the path to the upper field from the Foreside Road parking lot. That is a decision selectmen have yet to make.

The parking lot is a project that in recent months has drawn some criticism from neighbors worried about crime, pedestrian safety and property values. Thompson asked those opposed to the parking lot to comment on why they’re against the project, which drew several residents to the microphone.

J.P. Ouellette of Merrymeeting Drive raised safety issues, arguing children will be at risk due to increased traffic in the neighborhood, “and the potential for unwanted unknowns lurking in our neighborhood.”

A motion to reduce the article by $65,000 failed.

The debate continued with a proposal for voters to accept the right of way off Thomas Avenue as a town-owned way, ensuring the town can access the parking lot.

Joshua Spooner of East School House Crossing Road has coached local athletics said parents now drop their kids off in the street with traffic so they can walk to access the field.

“A parking lot is a far safer way to handle the situation at that field,” he said.

dmoore@timesrecord.com