HOWLAND, Maine — The leaders of Howland and Lincoln are putting together a list of services, training efforts or products they can share or buy in bulk to save taxpayer money, officials said Tuesday.
Lincoln Town Manager William Lawrence and Howland Town Manager Tracey Hutton met Friday to exchange ideas after Lawrence and Lincoln Town Council Chairman Steve Clay went to a Howland Board of Selectmen’s meeting on April 28 at Howland leaders’ request, Lawrence said.
Both towns want to save money, Clay said.
“If we can work with any town, and it benefits each town, then yeah, I think we should,” Clay said Tuesday. “The times economically are not good right now, and any time we can save money, then definitely we should.”
A joint sharing agreement of governmental services would be a first in the Lincoln Lakes region but it does exist in other areas. East Millinocket, Medway and Millinocket share the services of a code enforcement officer and recreation department. East Millinocket police and ambulance services serve Medway, and Millinocket schools share some arts, education and sports efforts, with efforts underway to share more.
Other Katahdin region efforts, such as school consolidation, have been stalled for lack of political will, officials have said.
No one in Howland or Lincoln is discussing anything so vast as school consolidation, merely such things as bulk purchasing of common supplies or joint firefighter training, said Clay and Glenn Brawn, chairman of Howland’s Board of Selectmen.
“There has not really been an open dialogue. We were just trying to shore that up and be willing to explore any ideas that could benefit both communities,” Brawn said. “One of the big things is that we can save money in joint ventures — bulk purchases or anything that we can come up with. Hopefully they have some ideas. Any EMT and fire training that can be done jointly is a big plus. It makes it easier in an joint situation, I would think.”
Lincoln and Howland leaders agreed that the first step is to find sharing efforts that would not cost either town anything, Lawrence said. “If there is a cost, right now, it’s probably not a good idea,” Lawrence said.
Both towns expect state aid declines, and Lincoln has been working toward cutting $600,000 from its municipal government budget to offset an expected loss in tax revenue from Lincoln Paper and Tissue LLC caused by an explosion last fall that destroyed a mill boiler. The town Budget Committee and town officials have cut about $569,000 to lower the town’s budget to about $3.8 million municipal budget. That process is not finished, Lawrence said.
“It’s a lot of money, and if this continues next year, I am concerned that we would be talking about the elimination of departments,” Lawrence said.
“Howland is going through its budget right now. Unfortunately, it will be up from where it was,” Brawn said. “Being a hard winter and having some [unexpectedly harsh] winter conditions, it taxed our budget really hard. We have had to increase it in some ways.”
Brawn said some selectmen hope to meet with Lincoln councilors at the Lincoln Town Council meeting on May 12. No agenda has been set, Clay said. Lawrence said it would be more likely that they will meet June 2.
Howland and Lincoln have a mutual aid agreement in place between fire departments and Penobscot Valley Hospital. Lincoln held a large-scale disaster drill on Saturday in which Howland was among the departments participating.