Lebanon passes budget; town offices open again

LEBANON – This small town in southwestern Maine reopened for business Wednesday.

The town’s voters, who defeated a budget in June that would have paid salaries to town employees, overwhelmingly approved a revised $110,000 budget Tuesday.

The earlier vote meant that Lebanon’s town offices were closed for much of the summer. Residents had not been able to register their cars or obtain fishing licenses since July 1.

It was the second time in 10 years that Lebanon voters shut down government offices. There appears to be little evidence that any other town in Maine has ever shut down even once, according to the Maine Municipal Association.

The final straw in a long-running dispute between Lebanon’s Board of Selectmen and a local residents group was a June 11 ballot proposal. A provision of the proposed budget would have paid each of the town’s three selectmen an annual salary of $15,000.

The proposal seemed reasonable to selectmen, each of whom is paid $10 per hour and estimated logging 30 hours a week.

But some residents believed the selectmen were inflating the numbers, and in June voters rejected the $110,000 budget by a vote of 585-419.

On Tuesday, voters passed a revised budget by a vote of 1,108 to 219. Town Clerk Laura Bragg said the only difference in the two proposals was that the second version retained the $10 per hour wage scale for selectmen.

Lebanon voters also approved the rescue squad’s budget 1,049 to 279 and the purchase of an ambulance 984-348.

The rescue squad’s budget had also been rejected in June, and a private ambulance company handled rescue calls in the interim.