OLD TOWN, Maine — When the state budget passed on Tuesday, it meant additional money for local schools, which helped the city keep the budget increase to less than 5 percent, as requested by community leaders.
“Our projected mill rate is $21.16, or 4.7 percent more [than this year],” City Manager Bill Mayo said Tuesday.
The city’s current property tax rate is $20.21 per $1,000 of valuation, so taxes are increasing by 95 cents, Mayo said.
The city’s proposed $16.5 million budget for fiscal year 2015-16 was approved unanimously Monday at the first of two budget hearings, scheduled for Monday and Tuesday. The second public hearing is 7 p.m. Tuesday, and Mayo expects the budget to pass again unanimously.
The budget process this year was especially hard because it includes a reduction in the local pulp mill’s value, after the owners of the Expera Old Town mill requested an abatement of nearly 85 percent of the current valuation.
“The city is using an estimated reduction of $26 million as a working number, until we know more,” City Assessor Travis Roy said Tuesday.
Expera Specialty Solutions, based in Kaukauna, Wisconsin, acquired the assets of the former Old Town Fuel & Fiber pulp mill on Dec. 5 during bankruptcy proceedings in U.S. District Court in Bangor, and it formally submitted an appeal in mid-March for a $43.7 million, or 85 percent, reduction of the town’s current assessment of slightly more than $51 million.
Roy denied the company’s abatement request, and the city hired an industrial assessing company to do a new independent assessment of the riverside property.
“The appeal is still viable and can be taken to the local board of assessment review, if the company is not happy with the outcome of the current appraisal work being done,” Roy said earlier this month.
Councilors decided to cut $70,000 from police, fire and public works, and cut the heavy equipment reserve account to keep the projected mill rate increase from going above 5 percent, Mayo said. City leaders also decided to use an unexpected $305,000 recently received as part of the federal funds to renovate Dewitt Field to reduce costs for residents, Mayo said.