Wiscasset selectmen on Tuesday night pared a long list of capital expenditures down to six big-ticket items for voters to consider. The board plans to recommend funding the items through $390,000 from the town’s $10.3 million investment portfolio managed by H.M. Payson of Portland.

Selectmen took up the capital requests in preparation for finalizing their proposed 2017-18 budget. Chairman Judy Colby told the Wiscasset Newspaper she expects the board to sign off on the warrant April 4. Voters will consider the municipal and school budgets on June 13.

The capital items to be considered include $40,000 for electrical upgrades at the municipal building; $35,000 for a Plymo ventilation exhaust system for the fire department and $16,000 for one for the ambulance department; $20,000 for a generator for the sewage treatment plant; and $12,000 to replace carpeting at Wiscasset Community Center. The remaining $267,000 will go towards road repair and repaving.

Over the last month, selectmen weighed several options to fund over two dozen capital requests including two fire trucks, a new ambulance, two dump trucks for the highway department and a utility truck for Wiscasset Municipal Airport.

At one point, the board considered a bond or dipping further into the town’s capital reserve. Instead, selectmen stuck with board policy to withdraw interest earned from the investment portfolio. At the close of Feb. 28, the market value of the capital reserves including endowments was $13.5 million according to the town office.

Funds taken from the Payson investments, aka capital reserve, are used to reduce the tax commitment. Several years ago, selectmen adopted a policy of withdrawing no more than 3.5 percent. They opted to recommend taking 4.5 percent this year,  the same percentage as used in the 2016-17 budget when property taxes soared 14.1 percent.

The budget committee will review the warrant and make its recommendations when it meets at 6 p.m., Monday, April 3.

Bob Blagden, committee chairman, called this the worse budget cycle he’d ever taken part in. “It looks like you’re going to be proposing another 5 percent property tax increase this year,” he told selectmen. “This means taxes will have gone up almost 20 percent over the last two years. You don’t seem to grasp the fact that there are people in this community that simply can’t afford these kinds of tax increases.”

“Our budget is $1,000 over last year,” Selectman Larry Gordon responded.

Blagden said Gordon had promised to reduce the budget. “The simple fact is we’re carrying too many people on the payroll for a town this size,” Blagden said.

Anne Leslie and Marty Fox of the Conservation Commission urged selectmen to consider raising funds for energy audits of town buildings for an estimated $2,000 to $3,000 per building. Selectmen declined to put a separate article on the warrant but may consider funding the audits through departmental budgets.

At the meeting’s outset, Gordon said he regretted a comment regarding the school department at last week’s meeting. Gordon said it would have been better if he’d stated his position in a different manner. He said he certainly never intended to offend anyone.