KINGFIELD — Selectmen unanimously voted Monday night to set the tax rate at $17.50 per $1,000 of property value, a $1 increase.

The town has not seen a higher mill rate in the past 14 years, according to assessor and selectboard Chairwoman Heather Moody.

Less revenue is coming in, and more money is going out, she said.

Several critical factors have changed the balance of the town’s tax burden, according to figures provided by Administrative Assistant Leanna Targett. Voters approved a 2014-15 budget in June that was approximately $23,000 more than the previous fiscal year.

Traditionally, selectmen appropriate the revenue sharing funds to offset taxpayer costs in the next fiscal year. Revenue sharing from the state funds declined by 52 percent, from $61,948 to $29,404, which will require property owners to make up the difference or cut services in the town. Also, the town’s share of the RSU 58 budget increased as state reimbursement for district costs have decreased, requiring the town’s taxpayers to pay $56,369 more than last year’s $1,416,600.

“It doesn’t make a lick of sense to me that we pay half our budget to the school system,” Selectman Ray Meldrum said.

Although the town has revenues from Poland Spring Water Co.’s bottling plant, selectmen must appropriate those funds to state-approved projects. The plant pays $367,000, and the town receives 60 percent of that revenue.

Currently, the town uses some of that revenue to pay the bond that funded the town’s expanded wastewater treatment plant. That bond will be paid in full in three years. Moody said taking $300,000 from surplus would help cushion the shift to property owners, but to take more would be lowering the tax burden artificially.