BAILEYVILLE, Maine — The Town Council on Wednesday continued to pick away at its 2009-10 municipal budget in the face of an announcement earlier this month that the town’s largest employer was shutting down indefinitely.
The Montreal-based Domtar Corp., which operates a pulp mill, blamed the shutdown on poor market conditions. More than 300 employees are feeling the pinch.
And so is the town.
At their budget meeting Wednesday, the five councilors worked through each line item, cutting pennies instead of dollars. This is not the first time they have been through the budget looking for places to cut.
In the past, Baileyville has been the envy of Washington County with its four mills paying nearly 90 percent of the town’s property taxes.
But no more.
All but one mill has closed and there are questions as to whether the pulp mill will reopen after it shuts down in May.
Interim Town Manager Dottie Johnson said that the town could not cut the $728,019 its owes in sewer loans. “Over the years our founding fathers have been borrowing some money big-time for the sewer. It started back in the 1980s and we’re just paying those off,” she said.
The town is scaling back its police department from a four-person crew to two officers and a chief. The plan is to use reserve officers to fill vacant time slots. The council agreed to put $7,500 back into the budget to cover the cost of part-time police officers.
“As much as I want this budget to be down so everybody can afford to pay their taxes I don’t want to keep us uncovered [without police officers on duty] for long periods of time,” Johnson said.
In another savings move, on April 1, the town’s ambulance service will go from free to a fee. The town recently received its Medicare and MaineCare billing numbers. That change should save the town about $30,000.
The town office is undergoing a free energy audit next week to see if there are ways to cut costs there. Johnson said that programmable thermostats were put in the town’s medical building at a cost of $700 for seven thermostats. When someone in the audience questioned the high cost of the thermostats, Johnson said, “I know, what can you say.” She did not elaborate.
Reviewing the assessor’s budget, the councilors agreed to do the town’s tax bills in house at savings of about $500.
They also cut $200 from the animal control officer’s budget.
Working through the rest of the budget, the councilors said that hydrant rates would be going up because of an expected water rate increase. Johnson said she still did not have firm numbers as to what that rate increase might be.
The councilors agreed to change the library schedule from four days to three days a week. With the proposed change the library will be open only Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
Johnson said she was not in favor of getting rid of the town’s recreation department. “The recreation department [serves] little kids to senior citizens,” she said. “I don’t think we should cut it.”
More work on the total municipal-school budget is anticipated over the next few weeks as the school department also works on its budget. The school department, like school districts in the rest of the state, is waiting to see what kind of state subsidies it will receive.
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