CALAIS – The subject tonight at the City Council meeting will be money, and the panel is expected to approve the proposed 2001-02 municipal and school budgets.

Union 106 Superintendent May Bouchard said the City Council had requested and the school committee presented a zero-increase budget over last year. But when the two sides conducted a workshop two weeks ago, councilors said they would approve an additional $50,000 for building maintenance at the elementary and high schools and $20,000 for textbooks.

The proposed school budget is $5.2 million. If approved, Bouchard said, the local share would be $1.7 million or a 4.5 percent increase over last year.

The school committee is expected to create a committee that will recommend what maintenance issues should be addressed.

But Bouchard said the walls on the elementary school boiler system are deteriorating. “They need to be repaired, and that is something we are going to take care of this summer. We are not going to wait for winter and have not only the boiler stop but the pipes freeze,” she said.

In order to remain at a zero-increase budget, Bouchard said, the school committee voted to combine some positions and cut others, including a second-grade teacher at the elementary school. “We squeezed as much as we could and came down to a flat-line figure,” she said.

Calais, like many schools in the state, is faced with a dwindling state school subsidy and declining student enrollment. Bouchard said the city’s state allocation was about $70,000 less than last year.

City Manager Nicholas Mull said the city also has worked to cut its proposed 2001-02 budget. He said he has combined positions and cut others. He said he planned to combine the city’s water and water treatment facilities into one department under a single supervisor.

But there also are new expenses this year. Two years ago, the city lost its private ambulance service. As a result, communities in Washington County were forced to create an ambulance authority to provide service to the area.

Mull said the new system means additional cost for the city. He said the city’s fire chief, in addition to his fire department duties, has been appointed director of the ambulance authority, creating a vacancy in the fire department. Mull said the city plans to hire a temporary full-time person to provide coverage when the chief is occupied with ambulance duties. The new employee will cost the city about $41,000.

The city also has had to increase the pay for its police dispatchers, who now must dispatch for the ambulance authority. The city hopes to recoup some of those costs.

“The ambulance authority has always intended to compensate the cities and towns one way or another,” Mull said. “Of course, everybody would love to have the cash back. If not, if the ambulance authority does run into a deficit situation a stipend is going to be asked for per capita by all of the cities and towns involved and we will have enough in kind into this where our residents are not going to have to pay.”