Fort Fairfield town councilors voted 5-0 Wednesday to approve a $4.29 million budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year, a roughly $260,000 increase from the previous year.
This would translate to a $56,363 increase in property taxes, or 1.3 percent, Town Manager Aaron Huotari said. But the town has yet to finalize costs for worker’s compensation, casualty and liability insurance, where a projected reduced total would ease the taxpayer burden.
“I met with our insurer yesterday, and those numbers are very favorable,” Huotari said. “It’s looking like we’re going to be $47,700 better [than the previous year], which really makes up the lion’s share of that increase.”
The biggest single-line increase in the budget is a $90,000 jump in police expenses, up to $703,173 from $613,350 in fiscal year 2024-25. It’s a 14.6 percent rise year over year and a more than 75 percent increase in the town’s police budget since 2021-22, where it stood at $401,484.
Fort Fairfield’s budget advisory committee recommended cuts of $86,000 from the total budget to the town council during a May 21 meeting, including nearly $60,000 from the police department. The council did not adopt that recommendation, but did take the committee’s suggestion to reduce the fire department and emergency medical services budget by $14,389 to a total of $1.13 million.
Another committee recommendation sought to cut proposed administration costs by $6,392, down to $680,142. Instead, this figure increased by several hundred dollars from the proposed budget to the one approved Wednesday, totaling $687,034.
The full budget can be viewed here.
Wednesday also marked the first council meeting for Huotari, who took over the town manager position from interim manager Dan Foster on June 16. Former town manager Tim Goff stepped down in March to become the chief marketing and public relations officer at Cary Medical Center in Caribou.
Huotari closed the meeting with a message of gratitude to Foster, who was in attendance, for his commitment to the town, where he has now held the town manager position three times. Foster served as Fort Fairfield town manager from 1998 to 2013, then for another 10 months in 2022 and 2023 before his most recent stint in the role this year.
“I would like to — personally and for the town of Fort Fairfield — thank Dan Foster for his efforts to keep everything running smoothly in the interim between Mr. Goff leaving and myself starting,” Huotari. “And for the amount of time that he spent keeping me in the loop of what was going on and training me and preparing me to be able to step into a council meeting on day three.”
