Wiscasset has a school resource officer for another year and will upgrade its ambulance service to ensure 24/7 coverage as a result of Tuesday’s voting. In other results, the school budget, hiking six percent, passed; so did articles to let one non-resident each serve as non-voting members on the town’s airport and waterfront committee.

Ambulance service is rising from the $286,288 voters passed in 2015 to $478,250. The vote ran 463-216.

“I think it’s what the community needs,” EMS Director Toby Martin said afterward. “I think it’s a step in the right direction, and that the community supports local services.”

Wiscasset Superintendent of Schools Heather Wilmot expressed her thanks late Tuesday night that residents passed the next year’s $8.9 million school budget. The vote ran 448 in favor, 222 opposed, in results Town Clerk Linda Perry announced at the polls.

“I am genuinely thankful for the community's support of the school department's budget,” Wilmot wrote in an email response to a request for comment. “Passing a budget can be nerve racking for a superintendent, but I was confident in the 6 month process that the administrative team used to develop a budget that balanced the preferred direction of programming for student learning and fiscal responsibility. I am proud of the team's work and it is simply a pleasure to be a leader in this community. We have so many things to be proud of.”

Wilmot also shared with the Wiscasset Newspaper a message she sent staff about the results. “Thank you for sharing in my gratitude of the administrative team and the six plus months that it took to develop a budget that represents our values, commitment to moving forward in a positive direction and one that is fiscally responsible,” Wilmot writes.

“It was no small task to communicate the message of our budget to multiple stakeholder groups to garner as much positive support as possible. The team could have not done all of this work without the support of Stacey (Souza, administrative assistant) and Shelley (Schmal, finance manager). My hat goes off to all of them. I am surely a very fortunate leader to have such a great team of people. Thank you to all of the staff for your patience and support throughout the budget process. I sincerely appreciate what you do for our kids and the community.”

The budget increases the facilities and transportation director to five days a week, expands an athletic director and assistant principal’s positions to half-time each, and provides a full-time alternative education teacher at Wiscasset Middle High School.

The school resource officer’s funding, a separate item from the school budget, passed narrowly, but not as narrowly as 2015’s vote of 274-272. This time it was 349-312.

Voters rejected each of two proposals to carry meeting coverage. One for $3,000 would have gotten one meeting a week carried on Lincoln County Television (LCTV); the other, also for $3,000, would have provided unlimited livestream and on-demand broadcasting with Town Hall Streams.

A question to raise $81,150 to put in escrow and let selectmen negotiate a deal for solar panels on town buildings also failed, 181-400. The money would have been for a seventh year buyout, according to the warrant in the town report. Two selectmen had recommended a yes vote, three had recommended a no vote; the budget committee had recommended a yes vote, 4-2.

“I would conclude ... the voters did not want to spend the $81,000 up front,” Marty Fox of the Wiscasset SunCATs wrote in email Wednesday. The way the article was presented worked against it, Fox said. The money could have been raised over six years, he said. Fox thanked the Wiscasset SunCATs for its hard work getting the article on the ballot, and thanked the budget committee for its majority support of the article.

Voters supported the change in rules for the waterfront and airport committees’ membership, to allow one non-resident to serve, in a 317-275 vote regarding the airport panel and a 327-264 vote regarding the waterfront panel.

Steve Williams of Georgetown has served for years on the airport committee and said he is glad that the ordinance will now allow him to remain on it. “It’s important to staff any committee with individuals that have the skill set and passion to accomplish the tasks laid out before it.”