EAST MILLINOCKET, Maine — The Board of Selectmen began its new term on Monday by facing a financial future with a new mill rate, officials said.
Selectmen named former Chairman Mark Scally to his old position and discussed in executive session during a meeting on Monday the delinquent taxes owed by Great Northern Paper Co. LLC, the town’s largest taxpayer.
Scally and Clint Linscott, selectman and former chairman, were elected to the board’s two open seats on Nov. 4 with 326 and 298 votes, respectively. Incumbent James Jamo lost his seat, getting 239 votes.
Not counting interest, Great Northern owes the town $886,691 in real estate and personal property taxes for the 2013-14 and 2014-15 fiscal years, town tax collector Erica Ingalls said. It owes $296,055 in personal property and $365,170 in real estate for the 2013-14 fiscal year, which ended June 30, and $88,474 in real estate and $136,992 in personal property for 2014-15, Ingalls said.
The 2014 reductions occurred because the company’s Main Street paper mill closed in late January. Only a half dozen or so workers out of 256 are employed at the mill in maintenance capacities, officials have said.
Marston and town administrative assistant Angela Cote said Great Northern’s tax delinquency increased costs, and a decline in state revenue-sharing forced the increase of the town’s mill rate from $21.93 to $28.54 per $1,000 in valuation effective this month.
Selectmen voted 5-0 to set the new rate on Oct. 29 and signed it into law the next day, Cote said. Under the new rate, homeowners owning properties worth $50,000 will pay $1,427 in property taxes this year compared with $1,096 in the 2013-14 fiscal year.
“It’s a lot better than what we predicted,” Selectman Mark Marston said, “but 28 is too high. I am not happy.”
Early mill-rate predictions ranged from $27 to $38, but cuts that left the school budget at $3.88 million and the town government’s at $2.99 million alleviated much of that increase, officials said.
Monday’s executive session will allow selectmen to discuss Great Northern’s nonpayment and its looming appearance in federal bankruptcy court on Friday in Bangor, Cote and Marston said. Several motions will be heard then, including the company’s bankruptcy trustee’s motion to set a date for the mill’s auction and another motion that would allow payment of continued maintenance costs.
Selectmen oppose an auction and want to see the mill sold to someone who could restart it, said Cote, who predicted that the town’s position would become clearer on Friday.