Wiscasset selectmen voted unanimously April 28 to recommend voters pass a $478,250 ambulance service budget. They reversed earlier plans to also offer voters a $415,840 option.

The higher figure is what it takes to get round-the-clock, paramedic level service, director Toby Martin said. Board Chairman Ben Rines Jr. cited concern that the department’s budget, about $180,000 higher than this year’s, was a big change for the town. And Martin asked the board if there is enough community support for it.

“That’s what we’re going to find out,” Selectman Jeff Slack said. He called the figure a great one, in that it honestly reflects the costs. When voters passed the the prior budget, and decided in a separate vote to keep the ambulance service,  the service was on life support, Slack said.

Other ambulance services would charge that or more, Slack said.

The department’s revenue will go up because bills will, due to the level of service that could be provided, Martin said.

If voters reject the spending offer June 14, a special town meeting could be called to try again to pass a budget for the ambulance service, selectmen said.

Martin described the proposal as a culture shock but said selectmen made the right decision.

Also Thursday night, the board reopened the question of contingency funding so Rines could change his vote from supporting the request to opposing it.

He, Slack and, from the audience, former budget committee member Bob Blagden all argued against the $35,000 item. There is no need for contingency now that the board is proposing the town’s fund balance cover all overdrafts, Rines said. Overdrafts among the departments topped $178,462 for the budget year that ended June 30, 2015, he said.

“That’s money that never went through the budget process. This is sloppy government,” and a big step back for the town, Rines said. He felt sandbagged by Selectman Judy Flanagan’s recent motion for it, he said, adding it should have been raised at the start of budget talks. He would have voted a lot differently on items and shaved $500,000 off the budget, he said.

Flanagan denied any sandbagging. She hadn’t decided until then to propose it; and she said selectmen watch over departments’ spending via the weekly warrants.

“I don’t believe we have a lot of unthrifty spending,” Flanagan said.

Town Manager Marian Anderson said departments’ added spending, particularly on major items, gets discussed publicly.

The board is offering voters a chance to get solar panels on the municipal building and town garage; however, in a split vote, selectmen are not recommending passage of the $81,150 item.

The money would be spent in the program’s seventh year, on a buyout with a contractor, selectmen said. Sundog Solar submitted a $81,150 estimate on the buyout; ReVision Energy, $88,120, according to proposals Anderson handed out. Negotiations would be still to come, if voters call for the project.

The budget committee meets Friday, April 29, to make its recommendations to voters. The meeting starts at 5 p.m., at the municipal building.