A significant increase in Damariscotta’s share of the Great Salt Bay Community School budget is largely responsible for the increase taxpayers will see this year.
The Damariscotta Board of Selectmen set the mil rate at $14.375, up from $13.95, at its July 18 meeting.
The rate determines the property tax per $1000 of assessed value. For example, the owner of a home and land the town assesses at $100,000 would have paid $1395 in property taxes in the 2011-2012 fiscal year. This year, the same property owner would receive a bill for $1437.50, a difference of $42.50.
Damariscotta will pay approximately $2.04 million as its share of the 2012-2013 Great Salt Bay budget, an increase of $200,155.
District voters approved an approximately $5.02 million budget in May. The figure amounts to an increase of $121,765 or approximately 2.42 percent more than the 2011-2012 budget.
Damariscotta will pay more than the increase in the total budget due to a shift in its share of enrollment in comparison to Bremen and Newcastle, the other two towns in the district.
Damariscotta’s approximately $2.49 million municipal budget, including the county tax, increased by the relatively small figure of $10,747 or approximately 0.43 percent. The local share of Damariscotta’s secondary education budget dropped $18,819. The town’s contribution to Central Lincoln County Adult Education was up $423.
Selectman Josh Pinkham moved to set the mil rate at $14.375 at the meeting.
“We need to be frugal next year,” he said. “We need to figure out where we can make cuts.”
“I think we are,” Damariscotta Town Manager Matt Lutkus said. “The town portion of this tax is a level budget, basically. I guess I’d propose that we are being frugal.”
“I’m talking about the town as a whole,” Pinkham said. “It’s everything – educational – we do our part, I know that, but we also need to work with them, as well, to communicate that that’s what we’d like to do.”
The tax rate will result in an overlay of $55,039.71, substantially less than the $100,000 in surplus the town used to offset taxes this year.
Towns often use overlay to cover abatements and replenish their surplus, also known, in Damariscotta, as the undesignated fund balance.
“We were able to keep our town budget lower because we were able to tap $100,000 from reserves,” Lutkus said. “We won’t have that $100,000 if we put less than that in the fund balance.”
Pinkham said the selectmen might be able to find savings elsewhere.
“We may not be able to take as much out of surplus next year to offset taxes, but maybe we can find another way within the educational system or our own budget to knock off some money, too,” he said.
The signs have been in the town office basement since a vandal or vandals cut one down with a chainsaw.
Damariscotta Town Manager Matt Lutkus said he wants to place one of the signs adjacent to the southbound lane of Rt. 1 just south of the Damariscotta-Nobleboro town line.
Lutkus and the selectmen have yet to determine where they will erect the other sign.
“They’re beautiful signs,” Lutkus said. “It would be sad to see them vandalized, but they’re a lot better off on Rt. 1 or wherever we want to put them than down in our basement.”
Lutkus said he also hopes to work with Newcastle and the Twin Villages Downtown Alliance to commission and erect a “Welcome to the Twin Villages” sign.
The sign would likely be placed next to the northbound lane of Rt. 1 near the intersection with Snead Spur and just south of the off-ramp into downtown Newcastle.
The Board previously authorized the expenditure of up to $40,000 in Efficiency Maine grant funds for this phase of the project.
The firm already did preliminary design work in association with an unsuccessful grant application to fund construction.
“They understand the issues we have out there,” Superintendent of Roads, Buildings and Grounds Steve Reynolds said.
The Great Salt Bay Sanitary District will chip in $8000 for its share of engineering expenses, as the project would also include the replacement of water lines.
Lutkus and Reynolds, after consulting with a Department of Transportation official, recommended the changes.
The town originally intended to apply for two Transportation Enhancement grants for sidewalk construction.
The first would have asked for funds to build a sidewalk on Bus. Rt. 1 from the Biscay Road intersection to Great Salt Bay Community School; the second for a sidewalk on Church Street from the same four-way intersection west to Chapman Street.
Instead, the town will apply for a single grant to extend the new Bus. Rt. 1 sidewalk from Coastal Marketplace to School Street.
The project has “a considerably better chance of being funded than the other two projects,” according to Lutkus.
“A rough estimate of the cost of this project would be $500,000, which would require a $100,000 local match,” he wrote in a communication to selectmen.
The selectmen also approved a Small Harbor Improvement Program, or SHIP, grant application.
Damariscotta and Newcastle are applying jointly for the $40,000 grant to pay for the design of a waterfront boardwalk and a building to contain public restrooms and offices, both in the area of the municipal parking lot.
The estimated cost of that project is $40,000, with $8000 to come from the towns.
