Will Wiscasset voters allow a projected 27 percent hike in property taxes? Or will they take the $1.25 million out that selectmen and the budget committee have offered them?

Town meeting is Saturday, May 31, at the Wiscasset Community Center, 242 Gardiner Road. The meeting starts at 9 a.m.

Tapping the town’s reserve fund for $1.25 million would shave the projected tax hike to 9.8 percent, Interim Town Manager Don Gerrish has said.

Most of this year’s hike would come from the school budget, which got voters’ first OK on May 14 and awaits their final up or down vote on June 10.

Wiscasset’s municipal budgets in recent years have largely been decided at the polls.

A majority of selectmen this year favored an open town meeting. Detractors repeatedly called on the board to reconsider. They argued the switch goes against a non-binding town vote for secret ballot budgets; and that people who had to work or couldn’t sit through the meeting would miss out on voting.

But the decision stuck.

Town meetings can help residents understand what they’re voting on, according to board members who supported the move.

Some of this year’s spending items that drew extensive discussion during budget talks were the proposed addition of a school resource officer in the Wiscasset Police Department, and $40,000 in reserve money for repairs to the municipal building roof.