PARIS — The $6.3 million budget proposed by Oxford County commissioners for 2014 is $208,500 less than the budget requested by county department heads, but still represents a 7.5 percent increase from last year’s spending. 

In a meeting Tuesday, Commissioners David Duguay of Byron, Caldwell Jackson of Oxford and Steven Merrill of Norway finalized a $6,342,738 budget proposal that represents a $443,410 increase in spending from 2013. 

With revenues, however, the actual tax commitment is expected to increase by $133,601, requiring $5,340,996 from property taxpayers in Oxford County. 

To offset the tax increase, commissioners are proposing to take $400,000 from the Casino Reserve, $100,000 more than last year. 

Oxford County receives a cut from the revenue generated by the Oxford Casino on Route 26 in Oxford. 

According to county Administrator Scott Cole, wages and benefits account for roughly 74 percent of the county’s expenses.

More than half of the proposed budget increase, $254,560, is from the Sheriff’s Office. Commissioners requested $110,00 to purchase four new vehicles, one fewer than requested by the Sheriff’s Office, and a $160,616 increase in wages. 

The wage increase represents the addition of a drug investigator, whose position is partially supported by the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency, and the use of two uniformed deputies to operate the office’s civil division.

The two deputies replace the county’s civil process department and their positions will be largely funded with fees from serving papers.

The commissioners’ proposal does not not include additional wage requests for the Sheriff Office’s top brass.

In its request, the department asked for a $9,350 pay increase for the sheriff, $6,460 for the chief deputy, $2,000 for the captain and $6,000 for the department’s three lieutenants. 

Commissioners are also proposing an $88,213 increase in wages for the Oxford Regional Communications Center, principally to pay for overtime and reserve coverage at the dispatch center near the Oxford County Courthouse on Western Avenue in Paris.

The proposed spending increase also includes a 2 percent pay increase for 27 nonunionized employees who have been working for the county too long to be eligible for step increases in pay, Cole said. 

The spending increase also brings the finance clerk, deputy county administrator and Oxford Regional Communications Center deputy director from part time to 40-hours-per-week positions. 

Cole said funding the three positions to bring them up to full time was a “recognition of reality” of the work that the employees were required to do. 

The commissioners’ proposed budget is sent for review by the nine-member county Budget Committee, made up of representatives from town boards of selectmen in the county’s three districts.

The committee is scheduled to meet Nov. 19 at the Oxford County Courthouse to work on the budget.

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