Wiscasset closed out its 2015-16 fiscal year in the black on June 30 but with overdrafts in departmental budgets totaling $153,249, according to the year-end balance sheet.

All three emergency departments, police, fire, and ambulance, were in the red. Also overdrafted were the contractual services, administration and town clerk budgets.

Town Manager Marian Anderson told selectmen July 26 they’ll have a balance forward to carry into the 2016-17 budget year.

How much of a balance remains to be determined. The balance sheet showed $203,350 remaining from the $5,949,171 voters approved for the 2015-16 budget.

Selectman Ben Rines immediately called the balance into question. “It includes $30,737 carried forward from cemeteries but these monies aren’t raised through taxes. They come from the Cemetery Trust Fund,” he explained.

Monies from the trust fund are to be used exclusively for care of the town’s cemeteries. A year ago at the June 2015 election, voters authorized appropriating up to $59,331 for care of the cemeteries. However, the balance sheet shows $83,322 in the 2015-16 cemeteries budget. Expenses totaled $52,585, leaving a balance remaining of $30,737.

Rines told the newspaper he didn’t know why the cemeteries line was $83,322 but suspected monies were probably carried forward from the previous year. “The point is the money remaining from the cemeteries line shouldn’t be put back into the general account. They should be returned to the Cemetery Trust Fund,” he explained.

Chairman Judy Colby agreed.  “The $30,737 that’s remaining in the cemeteries line has to be returned to the cemetery trust. It doesn’t belong in the general fund,” she said.

According to H.M. Payson, the town’s investment counsel, at the close of the fiscal year the market value of the Cemetery Trust Fund was $1.6 million.

Rines told the Wiscasset Newspaper what troubled him was seeing so many overdrafts. “My argument all along has been that we have a special town meeting where we can explain how these overdrafts occurred and get permission from voters to raise what funds are needed to cover them.”

Special town meetings are no longer required because in June voters passed an article granting selectmen authority to balance the town accounts. This didn’t stop Rines from making the case July 26 for a special town meeting, saying he didn’t see any excuse for the overdrafts.

He got no argument from the other board members as far as the overdrafted budgets were concerned.

“I agree, we have to do diligence over the coming year. It’s the board of selectmen’s responsibility along with the town manager and individual department heads to keep track of the budgets,” Colby commented. She said a town meeting wasn’t needed to cover the overdrafts, adding the town office had gotten two legal opinions on the question.

Anderson said there was an explanation for every one of the overdrafts. One problem was the turnover in personnel the town had experienced, requiring the town to pay out entitlements, she explained. Three of the larger overdrafts were the result of employees leaving, she said.

Anderson said another reason was that an employee had decided to take the health insurance option during the mid-year enrollment period. She suggested the board might consider a separate employee contingency line to cover these kinds of unexpected expenses. Otherwise, the monies come out of the individual departmental budget, she said.

Anderson previously told the newspaper that contractual services were overdrafted because selectmen spent more than they had budgeted for legal fees; $106,660 was raised, $136,377 was spent, creating an overdraft of $29, 717.

Anderson said the board receives a monthly accounting sheet detailing all the departmental budgets. The sheet includes the amount of an individual budget, the amount spent and what percentage of the budget it represents. She said she could revise how the accounting sheet is presented.

Going forward selectmen agreed to keep a closer eye on the budgets, agreeing any future overdrafts would have to be approved by the board.

During the discussion Colby noted she and Selectman Judy Flanagan meet together to review the town’s accounts payable every other Tuesday. “We require either the department head or town manager to initial every bill,” she said.

The overdrafts included $46,823 in the police department budget due to the resignation of the police chief and contracting of two interim police administrators though Tideview Group in Kennebunk.

Other overdrafted accounts included EMS $39,819, town clerk budget $18,767, administration $8,660, fire department $5,419, parks and recreation $2,639.

The balance sheet also showed a  $17,592 overdraft in the county tax line. The shellfish line was overdrafted $490.