NEWPORT – Selectmen Wednesday night voted to approve a $2 million proposed budget and send it to the town’s budget committee on Tuesday, Jan. 24.

Town Manager James Ricker explained the complicated process required of the town to keep the budget under the state’s required tax increase cap, including bonding a $16,000 playground replacement with payments not due until 2007.

Ricker said the town’s growth factor combined with the state’s personal income factor means that Newport was allowed to increase last year’s $1.9 million budget by 6.45 percent.

The selectmen’s proposal, at just over $2 million, represents a $109,564 increase, or 5.5 percent.

“There is no LD 1 police,” Ricker said, referring to the Legislature’s bill that installed the cap. “But if we don’t follow the cap, the door would be open to challenge our entire commitment.”

Ricker said substantial increases were in the administration and police accounts, since he opted last year not to stay both manager and police chief.

Other increases included $14,000 in solid waste, a jump in costs that forced Ricker to freeze all spending last July in order to balance the budget.

“Never in my tenure have we gone over a budget,” he said. Every year, Ricker has been able to turn money back into the general fund at the end of the year. In 2005, he turned back $19,205.

“I am comfortable with this budget,” Chairman Al Worden said.

The selectmen voted to create an Industrial Park Reserve Fund, to use payment for the next lot sold in the park to fund a revamping of the town’s 11-year-old comprehensive plan, and to continue to pursue cooperative purchases and services with SAD 48 that would be financially beneficial.