OXFORD — The Board of Selectmen unanimously approved using $400,000 from the undesignated fund account and setting the 2019-20 tax rate at $15 per $1,000 of assessed property value. The rate is 30 cents more than it was last year.

Assessor agent Donna Hayes presented several options to the board. “Using the revenues that budgeted and using nothing out of undesignated funds, the tax rate would be $15.90,” she said.

To keep the tax rate flat, $520,000 would need to be transferred from the fund, she added.

Town Manager Butch Asselin said there was approximately $3 million in the account, $600,000 of which could be used for tax relief.

In other matters, selectmen unanimously voted to enforce a clear trash bags only policy at the transfer station beginning Oct. 1.

Selectman Ed Knightly had been charged with researching the local availability of clear trash bags during the Aug. 15 meeting. The operating manual for the transfer station says mass solid waste must be disposed of in clear bags but white bags had been coming through, he said at the time.

At that time, he told the board white and black bags had been coming through

“Walmart has been good and helpful They have a whole pallet of clear bags,” he said. “Hannaford can’t help us because they can’t control what is on their shelves.”

Selectwoman Samantha Hewey said they could also be purchased through Amazon.

“If we are going to say clear bags, it has to be clear bags. We have to enforce it,” Knightly added.

Notices will be posted on the town website and at the transfer station so residents are aware of the enforcement.

The board also voted to transfer any Oxford Casino revenue in excess of $2 million to the Capital Improvement Fund.

Asselin said he had projected the town would receive $1.9 million from the casino during the 2019-20 fiscal year. The projection was recently revised to $2 million due to the actual amounts the town was receiving, he said.

Revenues from the casino are considered general revenue and is used for commitments such as school and county taxes, he added.

Marcia Matuska and Kathy Cain, co-presidents of the Thompson Lake Environmental Association told the Board of Selectmen Thursday night that 168 tons of milfoil, an invasive plant, had been cleared from the lake since 2005.

“We think it was introduced in the 1980s,” Matuska said. “Before milfoil remediation started, 16 acres of the lake had been infested with milfoil.”

TLEA maintains the quality of the lake by evaluating the clarity of the water twice a month, inspecting boats at three ramps for milfoil algae and other invasive plants, she added.

Financial gifts to the association, along with grant funding, covers the cost of the courtesy inspections, she said.

“The lake is one of the clearest and cleanest in the state,” she said.

The lake is 8 miles long, nearly 2 miles wide and covers more than 4,400 acres from Oxford south through Otisfield, Poland and Casco.