Lincoln County has initiated its budget-setting process for the 2016 fiscal year, which will begin Jan. 1, 2016. The recently elected budget advisory committee gathered to review the initial budget, composed of requests from department heads, some submitted just hours before the Thursday, Sept. 17 meeting began in Wiscasset.
The meeting marked the first time the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners saw the completed draft expenditure budget of $11,087,169, a $414,152 increase from the previous year’s expenditure budget of $10,673,017.
The draft budget anticipates $1,435,656 in revenue in 2016, reducing the municipalities’ share of the budget to $9,651,513, a 5.07 percent increase from the previous year’s figure of $9,185,899.
Of the 10-member advisory committee, composed of nine selectmen and a legislative representative responsible for recommending revisions to the county budget between now and December, Westport Island Selectman George Richardson, Newcastle Selectman Christopher Doherty, and legislative representative Stephanie Hawke, R-Boothbay Harbor, were the only members in attendance.
Former Wiscasset Selectman Ed Polewarczyk was the only citizen to attend. “My compliments to (Doherty, Richardson, and Hawke) for being here and fulfilling their duties,” Polewarczyk said during a public comment period. “I am disappointed though more selectmen aren’t here for this.”
According to Polewarczyk, a former budget advisory committee chairman, non-attendance by selectmen to the first county budget meeting was the standard practice when he served on the committee as well.
The budget meeting came less than a week after Lincoln County Commissioner Hamilton Meserve attended the Edgecomb selectmen’s meeting Sept. 14 to discuss the increases municipalities saw in their county tax bill. The county tax commitment rose 4.94 percent from 2014 to 2015.
Due to new financial practices, adopted at the recommendation of the county’s auditor, county commissioners are working toward eliminating the use of the surplus account to offset the tax commitment for municipalities. Commissioners are working toward billing municipalities the full amount of their share of the county tax commitment by 2017, 2018, or 2019, Meserve said.
The new practice was adopted in an effort to build up the county’s surplus account, which the auditor warned was slim. Traditionally, municipalities have only been charged 95 percent of the tax commitment with the surplus account used to make up the difference, Meserve said, a practice the commissioners are working to change.
“We’re always harping on the school to reduce their budget and they’ve done a good job,” Edgecomb Selectman Mike Smith said to Meserve, “but it seems like the county negates that savings.” Smith questioned Meserve about the budget-setting process and the role of the budget advisory committee, the recommendations of which the commissioners tend to ignore, Smith said.
“We’re extremely sensitive to what the committee wants,” Meserve said. “Sometimes we hide behind them.” Funding for the Midcoast Economic Development District and the budget recommendation for the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office were the only recommendations from the budget committee for 2015 that the commissioners overturned.
For 2016, the county’s contribution to Two Bridges Regional Jail and the sheriff’s office accounts for nearly half of the county’s preliminary expenditures budget of $11,087,169, despite a nominal decrease in the budget for the sheriff’s office and no increase in the amount raised for the jail.
According to the preliminary budget, the sheriff’s office is requesting $2,751,840 for 2016, a $10,931 decrease from the previous year’s budget of $2,762,771. The cost of jail transport, however, increased to $490,463 in the draft budget, a $31,502 increase from the previous year’s budget of $458,961.
The amount raised for Two Bridges Regional Jail remains $2,420,839. However, debt services for the county, which includes payment on bonds taken out to fund the jail’s construction and interest on the county’s tax anticipation note, increased to $892,125 from the previous year’s debt service of $871,750.
Lincoln County Communications remains the third-largest county department in the budget with a preliminary request of $1,264,262 for 2016, an $81,004 increase from the previous year’s budget of $1,183,258.
Smith questioned why taxpayers were shouldering so much of the burden of public safety, especially when the laws being enforced are set by the state and local taxpayers have little control over them.
Smith asked if the state should assume control for the jail and for law enforcement in Lincoln County as a solution to the rising county tax bill. The cost of the jail was also a topic of concern for Doherty, who asked several questions about jail funding at the budget committee meeting.
Employee wages and benefit costs are the major source of the increases in departments across the budget, Lincoln County Administrator John O’Connell wrote in a memo to the budget committee. The county recently adopted the recommendations of consultants L. Bouchard and Associates to bring county salaries up to market rates, resulting in an increase in personnel services in most county departments.
In addition, union negotiations are set to begin with the sheriff’s office, dispatchers, and dispatch supervisors for the bargaining units’ contract for 2016.
Final decisions on salaries and benefits are typically the last budget decision to be made, O’Connell wrote.
The budget advisory committee will meet twice in October to review the budget before making final recommendations to the commissioners. Commissioners have until Dec. 15 to approve a final budget for 2016.
The budget advisory committee’s next work session is scheduled for Oct. 8 at 7 p.m. in Wiscasset.
