THORNDIKE — Freedom held its annual Town Meeting over the weekend at Mount View High School, where residents approved the municipal budget.
In municipal elections Friday, Ronald Price was reelected to the Board of Selectmen. Price has served on the board since 2007 and is now its chairman.
Voters also elected six members to a new charter committee: Timothy Biggs, Phillip Bloomstein, Joseph Freeman Sr., Eleanor MacMakin, Rene Ouellet and William Pickford.
Cynthia Abbott was also reelected as town clerk, tax collector and excise tax collector, and Dyann Anderson was reelected as treasurer.
Voters passed all 36 warrant articles Saturday, Abbott said. The majority of articles were passed as recommended by the budget committee.
One change made at the meeting was to increase the budget for the Freedom Community Historical Society from $2,300 to $2,800. That increase raised the total budget for charitable contributions to $20,282.
With that increase, the municipal budget initially settled at $767,930. But officials then took into account carryover from last year and solid waste revenue, which brought the overall budget down to $688,536. That amount represents an increase of about $61,000 from last year.
It’s not certain if that will result in a tax increase, as the school budget and Waldo County budget still must be finalized.
Send questions/comments to the editors.