NEW GLOUCESTER — Selectmen on Monday added $5,060 to the Fire Department stipend account to pay firefighters $15 for training meetings.

The increase means firefighters and rescue personnel will receive the same amount for attending training sessions. The Fire Department stipend fund totals $25,430 and rescue stipend account totals $9,900.

Opposition arose at last week’s Budget Committee hearing when members raised the stipend to $15 for firefighters.

Selectmen proposed to keep it at $10.

At Monday night’s selectmen meeting to review the proposed municipal budget, residents supported firefighters.

“It’s a very small gesture of respect and appreciation,” resident Penny Hilton said.

The town has a problem in finding unity, she said.

“The Community Fair tried to do that, but we don’t have that kind of thing. The Fire Department is the one that does that. It’s a gesture of goodwill and the right time to do so. Don’t skip the importance of that department,” she said.

Resident Kathleen Potter said a letter from board Chairman Steve Libby that was read in his absence at last week’s budget hearing stated, “’I wish to start with a blunt statement that I am disappointed with the Budget Committee, manager, department heads and most of all, the selectmen. The budget as proposed by the committee is an increase of over 5 percent on the town’s part of the rate. This is just too much! We do not have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.’”

Potter said, “I do believe that we have a severe spending problem that is directly related to our lack of revenue and that was lawfully guaranteed to all municipalities in Maine by the Maine Municipal Revenue Sharing Act that passed in 1972.”

She said, “This act was passed in recognition of the many essential state tasks performed at the municipal level. It stated that 5 percent of the state sales and income tax was to be returned to each municipality according to its population,” she said.

“She said the funding has been reduced since 2010 to 41 percent. At 100 percent funding, New Gloucester would have received $491,458, but now the fund is reduced to $194,137. That funding figure is expected to be eliminated in 2018, if the state budget currently in review is approved.

Selectmen finalized budget figures for the Highway Department at $718,286, solid waste at $227,206 and Fire Department at $200,937.

The board is in the midst of revising the personnel policy. A new section for public relations has drawn heat from employees and residents. A new draft spells out employment positions that are incompatible with elected office.

The policy says employees shall refrain from using their influence publicly for or against any candidate seeking elective office in town government.