HOWLAND, Maine — An anticipated funding shortfall of close to $150,000 might force town leaders to increase property taxes by $300 on properties worth $100,000 come July 1, Town Manager Jane Jones said Monday.
The Board of Selectmen is considering a proposal that would increase the municipal budget from the $537,000 allocated for the 2011-12 fiscal year to about $550,000 for the 2012-13 fiscal year, which begins July 1, just to meet expenses, Jones said.
That increase, plus expected decreases in property taxes on the Penobscot River dam owned by Bangor Pacific Hydro and in state revenue sharing, has the Board of Selectmen considering several options, Jones said.
“It is really a challenge. Everything has been put on the table,” Jones said Monday.
Selectmen will meet at 6 p.m. Monday, May 14, to discuss the new budget.
Two key elements are missing from the deliberations, Jones said. SAU 31’s board of directors is still assembling a school budget and Penobscot County officials have yet to specify how much of a county assessment they will seek from Howland.
“If you look at it from where it is now, if it just stands where it is, we are looking at a 3 mill increase without knowing what the schools may or may not need,” said Jones, who also serves as the town’s tax collector and treasurer.
Under the town’s current 16.4 mill rate, a property worth $100,000 is taxed $1,640 annually. Under a 19.4 mill rate, that property would be taxed $1,940.
The board has not considered layoffs of any town workers yet, Jones said.
Board members are looking at using some or all of a one-time $127,000 payment the town received from the Maine State Retirement Fund to offset the funding decreases, Jones said. The retirement funds date to Howland’s payments into the system in the 1980s. The money is the town’s portion of unclaimed funds, Jones said.
“That money couldn’t have come at a better time,” Jones said.
Selectmen also could use some of the town’s $310,000 undesignated revenues fund to make up for shortfalls, Jones said. However, most financial advisers recommend keeping 10 to 15 percent of the town’s total government budget in that reserve fund, she said.
Howland homeowners still are adjusting to the completion last year of a two-year revaluation that increased the taxable value of most homes. That, and the town’s increasing number of elderly residents who are on fixed incomes, makes sudden increases in the town’s budget especially hard to manage, Jones said.
Howland has endured a 16.5 percent drop in its overall population over the last 10 years, with the 25-to-45 age group declining markedly, Jones said. The number of fixed-income Howland residents was not available on Monday.
“The Board [of Selectmen] is very sensitive to the needs of those who are seniors who are on fixed incomes,” Jones said.
Follow BDN writer Nick Sambides Jr. on Twitter at @NickSam2BDN.
These LePage Tax Increases will be happening across the state.
What’s the old saying? “Robbing Peter to pay Paul?”…..LePage
Thank the PRRT and the Baldacci Admin for the reduction in the Dams.
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ummmmm,, with the school board missing over a million dollars? that whole board should have to have some accountability! sure,, lay it on the property owners and reward the board for bad behavior! what a joke! close the school and stop the leak..
That’s going to help people in Howland who can not find a job not. Maybe they can drive to Bangor in the old truck and work 4 hour shifts for minimum wage?
I guess they should really support the PRRT now,go for it Howland
It’s clear we need to look at all town departments and reduce any item they can. Do we still need a full time highway crew that doesn’t even mow the grass (they contract that out). Lets privitize the snow plowing, close the school, stop the selectmen from using the town equipment for personal projects on the weekends, lets cut town office staff in half ( i wouldn’t mind standing a few minutes in line knowing i am saving my tax dollars, stop the tannery project if it involves any local tax money at all, and most of all stop wasting local tax dollars on a round about traffic circle that we didn’t need in the first place. Come on people did we really need the round about traffic circle? hope everyone enjoys that nice traffic circle should help people getting the heck out of here fast when they lose their house to the tax man. One other area is increase the ammount of each bag of trash so it eliminates the solid waste budget, i recycle so it wouldn’t hurt me that much but might improve the revenue from recycling.
I don’t know about that. It took me over 10 years to finally get out of an economically depressed town. I would get to their traffic circle and it made me so dizzy I went back home and laid down.
When is the last time you went to a town meeting? You need to get your facts straight on who pays for what and where that money comes from. If you don’t know what you are talking about then maybe you should with hold your comments until you do. A lot of what is hurting the local towns is not the usual budget issues, it is cuts on the state level and the mess that we are in with our school district. I will be the first to agree that we are now paying for someone elses wrong doing with regard to the school district issues and I think that the last superintendent and those who know what was going on behind closed doors ought to be the ones paying in one form or the other.
Well it is clear and i do have my fact straight. Lets see you people wanted to keep the school a float so you approve a million dollar loan and now when state revenues are being cut you guys dont know what to do except raise the local property taxes. It is time to pay the piper and the tax man hahahaha. Has it even occured to anyone in town it might be time to reduce the services instead of raising taxes. Keep borrowing money to fund that school and in the end you will still be shipping the kids to another school and repaying the loan back. Let’s just recap for a minute, the headline reads Howland considering large tax increase, and the school hasn’t even provided their budget yet. So i would say i do have my fact straight little lady. Oh and by the way i was at the meeting and watched most of you morons vote to approve the loan to bail out the school. Hope you can pay your taxes if not maybe i will benefit by purchasing your house through the tax aquired property program. But then again who will be left in Taxland to rent it to?Maybe you can enlighten me by telling me what the town provides for a municipal budget of $550,000? lets see a vol fire dept, a 2 man town crew, one employee in the waste water dept. I think the town finance dept took lessons from the school board in budgeting 101.