Ellsworth’s top administrator has proposed outsourcing the city’s tax assessing services to a contractor, and eliminating two full-time city jobs, but some residents are criticizing the idea.
After hearing about the proposal this week from City Manager Charlie Pearce, and getting citizen feedback, the council decided to wait until after Nov. 4, when three new councilors are expected to be elected to the seven-member board. Current councilors Michelle Beal, Tammy Mote and Jon Stein all have expiring terms and are not running again.
Pearce said that the idea is to reduce city expenses and to improve services, but added that the idea of eliminating two positions and laying off the employees who hold them is a difficult one. Larry Gardner has served as Ellsworth’s city assessor for 25 years, while the assistant assessor position, which also would be eliminated, has recently been filled by Luna Pinder.
City tax bills have been sent out late in recent years, Pearce said. The rate of growth in Ellsworth and increasing real estate prices has made it harder for the small department to keep up with the changing valuations, he said.
But he added that an outside contractor may have better insights into current best practices than a small staff accustomed to only one system. And he projected that, by outsourcing the department, Ellsworth could save $65,000 a year.
Lubec and Orono are two municipalities comparable to Ellsworth that already use outsourced contracting services, Pearce said. If Ellsworth went the same route, the official contracted assessor would have office hours in the city one day a week. The rest of the week, a city staffer who also works in code enforcement would handle walk-in and telephone inquiries to answer general questions and set up appointments with the new assessor.
“It’s not an easy decision,” Pearce said. “Now that I’ve seen that it will save the taxpayer money and increase services, that’s why you outsource.”
Some residents, however, don’t like the idea. The city tried outsourcing its assessing services 50 years ago, they said, and the results were not good.
Ralph Jordan said his father and uncle owned 70 acres of farmland on Bayside Road, part of where Frenchman Bay Conservancy’s Jordan Homestead preserve now is located. The outsourced assessor that the city contracted with in 1975 tried to assess the property as 70 one-acre house lots, he said.
The city quickly backtracked and went back to using its own staff assessor, he said. If not, his father and uncle would have faced an enormous tax bill increase, and they likely would have lost the land that had been in his family for 250 years.
“Before you make this move, realize that probably 25% of people in this town remember that. A lot of them are facing huge tax bills,” Jordan told the council this week.
Residential waterfront properties in the city saw their valuations jump on average by 31% this year, while other residents saw an average increase of 13%, the Ellsworth American reported this month. Commercial properties in the city saw an increase of 19% in their assessed values.
Rebecca Maddocks Wilbur said her father was on the City Council in 1975, and for months fielded phone calls at home from concerned citizens who — like many residents now — saw their assessments and tax bills jump.
“I would not take this lightly,” she told councilors. “Taxes are my biggest concern. Taking people’s jobs away to buy us trouble is not something I can stand behind.”
Steve Shea, who served on the council in 1975, said the previous experience in outsourcing was a “fiasco.” He said three of the city’s councilors are not running for re-election next month, and that the proposal should be something for the new councilors to consider after they are sworn in.
“You ought to hold off and do more research,” Shea said Monday. “I would not do it tonight.”
The council decided unanimously to table the matter and to have the new council take it up later this fall, after the Nov. 4 election.
“Usually when we see this much conversation and liveliness it means we’ve got to reconsider and think about this,” said Councilor Jon Stein, who is not running for re-election.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly listed Belfast as a municipality that outsources its assessing services. Belfast has its own full-time assessor on staff.