Wiscasset selectmen decided not to set the mill rate Tuesday night, choosing to give voters a chance to lower taxes by taking money out of the town's reserve funds.

The decision to call a special town meeting, which is required to transfer money out of the reserves, followed criticism leveled at the board members for not setting a town meeting as the town has done in the past few years. The reserves, originally about $15 million, and now about $11 million, according to chairman Duane Goud, is money the town set aside in different accounts during the time Maine Yankee was the town's biggest taxpayer. The atomic power plant closed in 1997.

The 3-2 vote to set the town meeting for October 4 at 7 p.m. at the Wiscasset Community Center was supported by Alex Robertson, Bill Curtis and David Nichols, and opposed by Duane Goud and Nicole Viele.

The selectmen will ask voters if they want to take out $900,000 from the reserves, the same amount taken last year. This will come from principal, not interest. All but about $6,000 of the interest earned this year has been spent, Goud said. The $900,000 will lower the tax rate this year by about two mills, selectmen said.

The mill rate will be set after the October 4 meeting, and taxes will be due on October 26.

Selectmen planned to meet on Wednesday, September 26 at the town office to start looking at the recently compiled assessments by Tyler Technology to make adjustments in areas that don't appear to be "fair and equitable."

Resident Dick Grondin suggested the selectmen "put in a pretty healthy overlay" (money for unanticipated expenses) because of the number of residents expected to file for abatements (reductions in their assessments).

Earlier in the meeting the selectmen discussed whether to accept the work done by Tyler. David Nichols said he wasn't happy with the factoring that Tyler did, some in certain neighborhoods and others on single pieces of property.

Alex Robertson said he was in favor of handling the inequitites through selectmen giving abatements. Grondin disagreed, saying, "You need to look at the logic - how they arrived at their figures. You need to look at them all."

Tyler came up with a total valuation of the town of about $450 million. Last year it was about $346 million. A total of $15.7 will be needed to run the town in this fiscal year, with about $9 million for schools and $5 million for the town.