BRUNSWICK

The Brunswick Town Council took its first crack at a proposed municipal budget that would raise property taxes 6.21 percent during a workshop Monday.

Councilors did not express support or opposition to the overall $54,865,804 spending plan Monday — a 3.1 percent increase over last year’s budget — but set direction for talks to come.

At the heart of those discussions will be a $33,491,029 budget recommended by the Brunswick School Board, which would represent 61 percent of total town spending if approved.

“We have to decide if we’re willing to tinker with the school budget at all,” District 3 Councilor Suzan Wilson said. “That’s an important piece because let’s just say someone wants to get to (a) 0 percent (tax increase) or 5 percent — there’s no way we’re getting there by cutting $6,000 for heating oil.”

From federal, state and other sources, the school department lost approximately $2.4 million in revenue for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

To help offset that shortfall, Town Manager Gary Brown said the current budget includes nearly $1.3 million in “what could be one-time funds.”

“We need to be careful that we don’t rely on that because it may not be there in a few years,” Brown said.

Based on current projections, Brown said that town coffers could support that spending for another year, but extending the scenario beyond two years could present a challenge.

Staring down what Brown, in a written introduction to the budget, called “one of the larger in increases in recent years,” District 5 Councilor Gerald Favreau bemoaned past councils’ rejection of attempts to raise the tax rate in the face of greater demands to fund education spending locally.

“(The school department) used a surplus to hide that,” Favreau said. “The time has come and it hit us.”

Favreau said the tax rate increase “would have been minor” if done at 2 percent over three years.

Brown said the town’s surplus funds help to offset decreases in education funding from state and federal subsidies, but “the tough part is what we do next year.”

In some departments, Brown said, the town may receive additional revenue not included in the budget — up to $300,000 could come as a result of a tax increment financing district for property at Brunswick Landing and $15,000 in revenue from the Great State of Maine Air Show — and any extra money would help pay expenses currently in the budget.

Councilors prodded other areas of the plan Monday, such as a $100,000 increase proposed for Curtis Memorial Library that Brown said is driven by many of the same factors boosting the town budget, including increased energy, health care and state retirement costs.

Councilors also sought more information on Brown’s recommendation to demolish the former Times Record building at 6 Industry Road, which the town purchased in 2004 for $1,275,000.

Previously, the school department eyed the building for a bus garage that would make room at the Coffin School campus — where the current bus garage is located — for other improvements and expansion.

Brown said Monday night that in the immediate future, an empty lot at that location could serve as a parking area for school buses that refuel at nearby town pumps.

Moving forward in the process, District 7 Councilor Sarah Brayman requested representation of the town budget in a pie chart and more historical information on budget trends in recent years.

“People think we’ve just been spending, spending, spending,” Brayman said, “and I think this can be a very thoughtful process.”

The council scheduled its next workshop on the budget for Monday at 6 p.m. at Brunswick Station, 16 Station Ave.