The regional planning commission, finance and treasury department, county building department, and retiree benefits budgets were voted down Thursday, Oct. 8 in the second meeting of the Lincoln County Budget Advisory Committee.
Five of the nine selectmen who make up the committee’s voting members attended the meeting and expressed their dissatisfaction with a rising county budget, which the advisory committee seems to have little control over, members said.
Health care costs, retirement payments, and a lack of communication around the purchase of a new building for the Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission were the reasons cited for the votes against the departments’ budgets.
According to Lincoln County Administrator John O’Connell, employee costs in the 2016 budget are more detailed than ever before. In previous budgets, employee benefits were lumped together as their own line item.
At the request of the budget advisory committee, those benefits are now broken out into the individual county departments, O’Connell said. “It’s an adjustment,” O’Connell said. “There are still a number of meetings and there will be more discussion to come.”
South Bristol’s Chester Rice was elected chair of the advisory committee and led the charge in picking apart the budgets of county department heads. Reluctant to accept the nomination, Rice agreed to serve as chair at the pleading of Westport Island’s George Richardson.
Nobleboro’s Bud Lewis, Wiscasset’s Ben Rines, and Newcastle’s Chris Doherty were also in attendance to weigh in on the proposed $11.08 million expenditure budget; a 3.88 percent increase from the previous year’s expenditure budget of $10.67 million.
Bristol’s Chad Hanna, Edgecomb’s Jack Sarmanian, Damariscotta’s Robin Mayer, and Somerville’s Susan Greer were absent.
The Lincoln County Registry of Probate budget passed with limited questioning, however, Rice and fellow selectmen balked at the increase to the department’s budget caused by a newly added line item for retirement.
Previously, retirement contributions for county employees came out of an interest-bearing account the county set up with the Maine Public Employees Retirement System. Due to a change in the Maine Public Employees Retirement System accounting system, the account was closed and the county received a refund of approximately $645,000, county Finance Director Carrie Kipfer said.
The 2016 county budget marks the first time in a long time the county has had to budget for retirement, Kipfer said. Rice questioned why the refund from Maine Public Employees Retirement System was not being used to fund retirement contributions for county employees.
“Why aren’t you drawing from (the refund)?” Rice said. “It’s better than borrowing from the taxpayer.” Opposition to the new retirement contribution incorporated across county department budgets was a running theme throughout the meeting.
According to O’Connell, the commissioners have not yet determined what to do with the refund.
The county buildings budget was the first to be rejected in a 3-2 vote after Rice grilled maintenance supervisor Jim Hopler about the $80,946 increase. The buildings budget is proposed to grow from $326,195 in 2015 to a requested $407,141 for 2016.
Personnel and employee benefits were the primary cause of the increase with plans to switch a part-time position to a full-time position. Despite a new health insurance plan, which reduced the county’s health insurance costs for 2015 by $150,000, Rice balked at the amount still paid by the county in health insurance.
Single health-care coverage costs the county approximately $7,000 and a family plan costs the county approximately $18,000, Kipfer said. “Taxpayers are paying for this,” Rice said. “It’s a little ridiculous.”
The county has two union contracts, which it must abide by, Kipfer said. The health insurance plan dictated by the contracts is offered to all county employees. Previously, the county offered different health insurance plans for union and non-union employees, but the county was met with grievances over the practice, Kipfer said.
The fixed costs involved in a new county building on Bath Road, purchased to house the Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission, contributed to the increase in the buildings budget, Hopler said. Selectmen expressed dissatisfaction that the county purchased a building without conferring with taxpayers first.
The new building was purchased and remodeled for approximately $160,000, a cost the county covered through use of the Maine Public Employees Retirement System refund. The purchase of the building was through “serendipity,” County Planner Bob Faunce said, and needed to be acted on quickly before the opportunity to purchase it for approximately $100,000 below its market price disappeared.
The Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission plans to convert the building into an economic development center and generate revenue for the county by renting office space and conference space to outside organizations, Mary Ellen Barnes, economic and community development director, said.
Selectmen voted down the planning and economic development budget request of $192,471 for 2016, a $10,278 increase from the previous year’s budget of $182,193, 3-2. The budget was largely voted down due to the lack of communication about the new building’s purchase.
“I don’t think it was the right process to follow,” Rines said. “The taxpayers were left out.”
A more than 100 percent increase in the finance and treasury department’s budget, from $87,851 in 2015 to a requested $178,189 for 2016, was due to Kipfer assuming a new role as the county’s finance director and moving out of the commissioners’ budget. Despite a correlating decrease of $68,650 in the commissioners’ budget from the change, the finance and treasury department’s budget was also voted down 3-2.
Retirement contributions and health care costs were again cited as a concern by the selectmen who voted in opposition to the budget.
Retiree health insurance benefits were also voted down 3-2 with selectmen citing previous discussions about doing away with the benefit. The requested $73,006 in retiree health insurance benefits, a $12,094 increase from the previous year’s budget of $60,912, covers supplemental insurance costs for the county’s retired employees, Kipfer said.
Selectmen asked if the benefit was a standard offer in other counties, which commissioners said they would look into.
The district attorney’s budget and recycling department’s budget also narrowly passed, 3-2, with retirement contributions and health care costs the primary reasons behind the opposition.
The registry of deeds was the only county department with no opposing votes from the committee, due to it being a self-sustaining department with revenue exceeding its budget request.
The budget advisory committee will meet again Oct. 22 to consider the sheriff’s office, Lincoln County Communications, and emergency management agency budgets, among others.