Auburn Finance Committee Recommends FY27 Budgets for Police, Library, and IT Departments

AUBURN — March 4, 2026 — Auburn Finance Committee recommends FY27 departmental budgets totaling more than $8 million across police, library, IT, and other town departments. The committee voted unanimously Wednesday to advance a $913,641 public library budget — more than double the library's salary spending from fiscal year 2023 — and a combined $6,668,810 police and communications package, while deferring a Police Chief Glenn Mills request for four additional patrol officers and an administrative sergeant to the FY28 cycle. Town Manager Dory Verrault said the staffing request was omitted not because the need is disputed but because "I just can't afford it right now," and she pledged to include it in next year's budget. The committee also approved more than a dozen mid-year transfers, the largest a $100,000 draw from the reserve fund for DPW fleet maintenance attributed to an unusually punishing winter storm season, with DPW Director Joanna Paquin reporting roughly $75,000 already committed in outstanding invoices. Mills told the committee that 73 percent of police shifts last year ran at minimum staffing — three patrol officers and a supervisor — a threshold unchanged for approximately 20 years, and that 29 firearms were seized from prohibited persons in the prior year, with Auburn officers making 470 arrests and executing 57 search warrants.