MILLINOCKET, Maine — The auctioneer trying to settle Great Northern Paper Co.’s $1.18 million net tax debt wired $180,000 to the town earlier this week, leaving GNP still at least $477,700 short of paying its debt, officials said Thursday.
Town Manager Peggy Daigle told the Town Council of the payment during its meeting Thursday. She said it had arrived two days before.
“This puts us closer to the end, and that’s good news,” Daigle said.
Councilor Michael Madore said that the payment was a positive in an otherwise gloomy picture with the bankrupt papermaking company.
“Hopefully we will get some more to offset what they still owe in taxes,” Madore said. “It is a little bit of light shining because it has been a while since we got any auction proceeds. So this tells us that [payments] will still be coming in, so that is good news.”
GNP hired Koster Industries to auction its equipment from its Katahdin Avenue industrial site June 17 to pay taxes owed to Millinocket and the Internal Revenue Service. The auction allegedly came in response to IRS and town liens on the equipment.
Since then, two GNP corporate entities have filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in federal court in Bangor, listing more than 1,000 creditors.
Before Tuesday’s payment, Koster only paid $531,567 to the town for the money it owes for the 2013-14 fiscal year. Koster made a $96,417 payment on July 31, a $76,650 payment on July 24, a $133,500 payment on July 18 and a $225,000 payment on July 3.
A few weeks after the auction, Koster officials told town leaders that collecting money from the auction participants has been much more difficult than they expected. The nonpayments are among a series of setbacks for GNP since it came into the region in 2011.