$55.6M budget tops Auburn town meeting warrant.

• Author: Oleson, Ellie
• Position: Weeklies

Byline: Ellie Oleson

AUBURN -- Members at the May 6 annual town meeting will be asked to support a $55.6 million budget for fiscal 2015. This is up from fiscal 2014's $54.7 million budget, according to Edward J. Kazanovicz, assistant town manager and finance director.

There are 38 articles on the meeting warrant. At least 13 are standard articles, including one authorizing selectmen to sell properties taken by tax title and one to appropriate $500,000 to the Other Post-Employment Benefits Liability Trust Fund.

The School Committee has six articles, including four that amend previously approved capital improvement funds for the Julia Bancroft and Mary D. Stone schools that would instead be used to renovate the middle school.

Superintendent Maryellen Brunelle said the plan is to renovate the Swanson Road middle school for use as an elementary school when the new middle school opens on West Street and to take the Bancroft and Stone schools offline.

Also on the warrant is a request to up the real estate tax exemption for low-income elders and disabled veterans.

Two articles, one by citizens' petition, ask for funds to add side wings to the town's Purple Heart monument, which has no more room for names of those wounded or killed in military service.

Sewer Superintendent Jeffrey Mitchell is...