When an Alna Fire Department utility truck went up for sale earlier this summer, a Craigslist ad drew 35 sealed bids. The winning one came in $71 higher than the $10,000 Fire Chief Mike Trask had hoped the 1972 Dodge Power Wagon would bring.

The money offset the cost of a truck that replaced it, since the department’s nonprofit, fundraising arm had paid for both, Trask said.

On Sept. 2, he met with selectmen about a fire truck the town recently replaced with a new, nearly $300,000 one. Most of the older truck’s equipment has gone onto the new one, so, as he did when the board first discussed it July 29, he suggested selling the 1986 truck online.

If kept, the truck would keep racking up insurance and other costs including a pump test for $1,000 to $1,500, Trask told the board Sept. 2.

“(The truck) would be just sitting there doing nothing ... I see it as a cost that we don’t need to incur.”

Selectmen agreed. “It’s really not benefiting us,” First Selectman David Abbott said about the GMC truck with about 16,000 miles and new tires on it.

The board decided to put it on Craigslist and the town’s website at www.alna.maine.gov, and in a newspaper ad. Selectmen planned to reserve the right to refuse all bids.

Town officials also planned to let Wiscasset Speedway know the truck is for sale. The West Alna Road business recently showed interest in it, Trask said.

Future tax offset

Selectmen took no issue with Sheepscot Valley Regional School Unit 12’s plans to wait until 2016 to offset towns’ tabs with added state aid. This year’s state share of education costs is about $205,000 higher than projected when voters passed the district budget.

To apply that money to this year’s budget and save towns from raising the higher local share they agreed to raise, the district would have to call another district-wide budget meeting and referendum, according to an Aug. 29 letter the selectmen received.

“It was felt that the time and expense involved to follow the law would not produce the desired and timely result since many RSU 12 towns have already committed taxes based on the original ... amount,” the district’s finance committee writes.

Instead, the committee is proposing to reserve the added state funds and then apply them to the following year’s budget.

The district’s board planned to pass the proposal Sept. 10 or Oct. 8, the letter states.