The Caribou City Council outlined its priorities for the city’s 2026 budget in a workshop Monday night, and set an informal target of funding a budget that does not increase the municipal tax rate.
They have some work to do to achieve that. The final departmental requests totaled $13.2 million, down nearly $400,000 from the initial requests.
The figure is $1.7 million higher than the 2025 figure the council approved last June, when it cut $1 million from a budget it had approved three months earlier to combat sizable increases in the Regional School Unit 39 and Aroostook County budgets that would have ballooned the city’s tax rate by 2.5 mills.
It’s accompanied by a $2.07 million capital budget, a substantial increase over the previous year that is largely driven by payments for a new ladder truck for the fire department.
As it stands, this budget projects a 0.25 mill increase, council deputy chair Jody Smith said. But funding a flat budget is a feasible goal, councilors said.
“We’re very close to that and I think we can achieve it,” Smith said.
“I think our department heads have done an excellent job of not bringing us a budget that has a whole bunch of fluff,” Councilor Paul Watson said. “What’s been brought to the table is respectable, it’s reasonable.”
With department heads on hand for the workshop, Councilor Dan Bagley, who was elected to a second term last November, scrutinized any budget increases above 15% over the previous year, most of which are owed to departments — such as the police department and public works — returning to full staffing levels after being short staffed.
Bagley dug into capital improvement projects, which he said could be funded in a more efficient manner that leaves less money in capital reserve accounts but plans better for future expenses. Other councilors and department heads disagreed.
“I think we’ll get there with capital,” Bagley said. “I think there’s a lot more to gain as we look through those balances that already exist. I think we can come away with a significant decrease in our mill rate.”
Caribou’s next City Council meeting is set for March 16, as the group continues to deliberate the budget.