Despite being months away from passing a city budget, Bangor city leaders are exploring ways Bangor residents won’t have to bear the expense of a rising county tax.
Councilors Susan Faloon and Michael Beck said they can’t predict how budget discussions will go this year, but did say they want to avoid passing on the costs of skyrocketing county taxes to residents.
Penobscot County’s 2026 budget totaled $35.3 million, a nearly $4 million jump from last year due to a $3.5 million shortfall in the county jail budget. This jump sent the county tax surging by roughly 16%, adding roughly $1.2 million, or a 1.7% increase from last year, in taxes that must be paid by Bangor residents, city spokesperson David Warren said.
That change would add 21 cents per $1,000 of property value to the Bangor tax rate, County Treasurer Glenn Mower said when the budget was approved. If there were no other changes made to the city’s budget this June, Bangor’s tax rate would rise to $17.91 per $1,000 in property value, or $3,582 in taxes for a property valued at $200,000.
Elected officials across Penobscot County said during its recent budget process that the hike would affect how their communities would budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Similarly, Bangor residents — who will bear the biggest brunt of the county tax increase — have been vocal about not being able to afford the growing cost, Beck and Faloon said.
“Coming fresh off the campaign trail, I can tell you that people are concerned about city taxes,” Faloon said.
This is Faloon’s first year on the council and her first city budget. She was a member of the county’s budget advisory committee that reviewed and approved a $35.1 million version of the budget that was ultimately changed by County Commissioners Dave Marshal, Dan Tremble and Andre Cushing.
Faloon stressed that conversations about the budget haven’t started yet, but if cuts needed to be made, she would look to areas similar to where the county cut funding, such as donations.
“We have people right now struggling to stay in their homes. So we’ve got to really look at where we can cut or at least keep things flat but still provide services that people need in the city,” Faloon said.
Changes to the city’s budget may be difficult because it’s already lean, Faloon said.
Before any decisions are made on the budget, Beck said he is looking toward a proposed tax relief program for senior citizens and creating supportive housing as ways to lessen the burden on residents.
“Any kind of big increase is unsustainable. I don’t want to get into the situation where we’re pricing people out of their houses,” Beck said.
The possible tax relief program will be discussed in the Council’s next finance committee meeting, Beck said. The program would be targeted at seniors, who are the most vulnerable and really can’t pay more in taxes, Beck said.
Beck is also part of a group that is forming a city housing committee, which he said could lower the county jail budget.
Creating more affordable housing and supportive housing would keep people out of jail because housing instability is raising the likelihood for people to be arrested, Beck said. To lessen the number of people in the Penobscot County Jail, Greater Bangor communities need to fund housing developments in their areas, Beck said.
“When [communities] can’t keep up, the county jail fills up. And not that it’s about pointing fingers, but I want to show our neighbors that if they could just step up in creating affordable housing, we can lower jail occupancy,” Beck said.
Creating a regional fiscal impact report on how other communities’ lack of affordable housing is forcing Bangor to spend more money on housing could push those towns to build housing in their own communities, Beck said.
If housing was more available and the number of people jailed went down, Beck said, the county budget could decrease because the jail wouldn’t have to board out inmates.
With these changes not being immediate, Beck said he wants to see reforms or changes to the county budget process and the budget advisory committee, citing the committee’s wish of $1 million in cuts from the budget not being realized in the final budget.
More information on how the county came to this deficit through forensic accounting before the 2027 budget is up for approval is also needed, Beck said.
“We could never get away with this at the local level,” Beck said.
Correction: An earlier version of this report misidentified David Warren’s job title.