HAMPDEN, Maine — Despite increases in the cost for education and the county tax, among other things, the town’s property tax rate for next year is expected to hold steady, Town Manager Susan Lessard said Thursday.
“The instructions from the [Town] Council this year was they wanted to see what a budget looked like that would keep the mill rate as it was, taking into consideration revenue losses, if any, from the state and [expense] increases coming from the school and the county,” she said.
To that end, Lessard and other town officials have developed a $6.8 million municipal budget that while more than $130,000 less than this year, maintains the current level of services.
Barring any major changes to the municipal or RSU 22 budgets, the town’s property tax rate will remain at or close to $17.50 per $1,000 in valuation, she said.
“To John Q Citizen, they’re almost invisible,” Lessard said of the budgetary changes proposed for the fiscal year ahead.
Among the cuts to the municipal budget is the town planner position that became part time this year, Lessard said.
The position was held by Bob Osborne, whose last day in Hampden was Thursday and who accepted a full-time planning post in Bar Harbor, Lessard said.
In a related move, town officials moved planning functions into a newly created planning and assessment department that will be led by Dean Bennett, the town’s community and economic development director.
In other cost areas, the county tax bill came in at $768,555, up $16,626 over this year, and Hampden’s share of the proposed RSU 22 budget will be $6,130,574, or $97,534 more than this year, barring any changes during the school unit’s annual district budget meeting on June 3, Lessard said.
The RSU’s actual effect on Hampden’s municipal budget, however, will actually be about $37,000 less than that because school officials, who contributed $30,000 toward the school resource officer’s cost, plan to fully cover the tab next year, Lessard said.
Another budget move that will help ease the burden on taxpayers involves health insurance.
“We’re looking at altering our health insurance package in ways that will lower premiums paid by the employees and the town but still provide the coverage — comparable coverage but different in the way we are doing it,” Lessard said.
“Old Town has done some work in this area, and I admit to blatantly plagiarizing some of what [City Manager] Bill Mayo has done in terms of looking at health care and providing health care a bit differently,” she said, adding that she is working to that end with Bangor-based benefits administration consultant Med-A-Vision.
The idea is to reduce coverage costs through higher deductibles and to fund those deductibles separately through a health reimbursement account, or HRA, so that employees recoup out-of-pocket costs.
“What people really care about in coverage is that claims are paid. That’s really the bottom line,” Lessard said. “The employee doesn’t lose anything but everybody gains.”
The insurance numbers are still being finalized, Lessard said, “But we’re talking six figures for the town of Hampden. That’s the potential savings — even having funded an HRA,” she said.
A budget item that has yet to be decided is whether the town will continue to fund Saturday public bus runs, an issue that proved controversial while developing this year’s budget.
The budget review will be conducted during the June 1 council meeting. A public hearing on the budget will take place during the council’s June 15 meeting, according to budget information items posted on the town’s website.