Wiscasset’s property tax rate is going up 4.6 percent, after selectmen decided Sept. 16 to use $300,000 from the town’s fund balance to offset taxes.

For a $200,000 home, that comes out to a bill $160 higher than last year’s.

Last year’s tax rate was $16.20 per thousand dollars of assessed valuation. This year’s will be $17.

Selectman Bill Barnes was the lone dissenter on the $300,000 tap of the fund balance. He argued for more to be taken, to further reduce taxes.

“It’s going to be devastating,” he said of the increase.

Resident and Budget Committee member Bob Blagden agreed that more than $300,000 should be taken. He told the board he would rather pay his share of a low-interest tax anticipation note, for lack of a fund balance to fall back on, than take a tax hike.

Selectman Tim Merry said he would hesitate to take as much as $400,000 or $500,000 from the fund balance.

“We don’t know what next year’s going to bring,” Merry said.

“That is my fear, too,” Chairman Pam Dunning said. “I’d like to have something if next year is another ‘Oh, my God’ moment.”

This year’s hike stemmed largely from higher education costs in Wiscasset’s first year outside Regional School Unit 12.

The $300,000 tap was the highest that Town Manager Marian Anderson recommended selectmen consider going Tuesday night. She cited the board’s policy that seeks to have enough of a fund balance to cover two months’ expenses, or about $1.8 million. As of the last auditor’s report, the fund balance stood at about $900,000, she said.

Under other scenarios selectmen looked at, taking $250,000 from the fund balance would have resulted in a 5.2 percent tax hike; taking $200,000 would have meant a 5.9 percent hike.

Movement on bottle collection issue

Nonprofits with bottle collection bins at the Wiscasset Transfer Station need insurance to have them there, and the bins have to be moved outside the station’s workspace, selectmen and Anderson said. Station Superintendent Ron Lear didn’t know yet which outside area would work in the winter, when plowed snow piles up. But Anderson said she and Lear would make sure the bins are out of the workspace. The changes follow Anderson’s research into a potential policy on bottle collection, after Barnes raised questions about current practices.

Tuesday night, Barnes argued that the bottles people bring to the station could instead be going to offset the station’s costs. Dunning cited a number of points the board will need to consider for a policy, including any limit on the number of collection bins at the station.