BELFAST, Maine — The Waldo County commissioners said this week that they’re pleased to tell taxpayers the proposed 2015 budget is lower than last year’s by more than $175,000.
Altogether, the 2015 budget is $4.98 million, which is the first time the budget has been under $5 million in four years, according to Commissioner Betty Johnson. And it was trimmed not by making personnel cuts, she said, but by careful planning. If it is passed as proposed it should cause a reduction in the county tax commitment for each Waldo County municipality.
“We have been really working on different ways to economize,” she said. “We’ve been working on lots of different angles, and we’re careful.”
The county budget must pay for several departments, which include the Waldo County Sheriff’s Office, the Waldo County dispatch center, the district attorney’s office and the corrections division. There are about 90 employees working for the various departments, Johnson said, adding that one important cost-savings area has been health insurance. The proposed budget shows an $80,000 reduction in health insurance costs from 2014.
Johnson, who is on the Waldo County Wellness Committee, said that the group has been trying different things to reduce health care costs. Something that has worked is an incentive program in which the county will pay for part of an employee’s membership at the Waldo County YMCA if they go a certain number of times each week.
“On some of these incentives, not everybody takes advantage of it, but it’s offered,” she said. “That’s big savings, especially where everybody else is having increases in their health insurance.”
Commissioner Bill Shorey said that another move that has led to savings involves the ongoing garden project, in which inmates at the Maine Coastal Regional Reentry Center have grown vegetables at a plot of land in Swanville. The produce is donated to church food pantries, the Belfast Soup Kitchen and others, with some of it going to the re-entry center in order to feed the inmates.
“The guys from the re-entry center, the way they help is outstanding. The way they volunteer is outstanding, and I really appreciate that,” he said. “So far this year, we’ve produced about 20,000 pounds of vegetables. That really feeds a lot of people in Waldo County. It’s a real, real good project. It’s doing a lot of good.”
Commissioners said that the proposed budget doesn’t include funds for the reserve accounts, which they said are adequate at this point.
“Waldo County is a very, very sound financial county,” Shorey said. “We just try to keep the budgets down and the costs down as much as possible.”
The budget has been submitted to the budget committee for review, and the first budget committee meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 17, in the Maine District Courtroom at 103 Church Street in Belfast. For more information, please visit the website www.waldocountyme.gov or call the Waldo County clerk at 338-3282.