After months of heated discussion and packed meetings, the Lincoln Town Council moved Wednesday to pass a budget that undid proposed cuts to town services.
The council voted 5-2 in favor of a $11 million budget that represents roughly a 3% cut, with two members of the council’s four-person conservative majority agreeing to back off on the steeper cuts that were approved in June but were rescinded later that month following public pressure.
While Lincoln’s budget is being slashed, the change pales in comparison to the 12.8% cut that was originally passed by the council’s conservatives. That proposal drew swift condemnation from town employees, particularly in the police and fire departments, whose leaders said it would force layoffs that undermined public safety.
They agreed to withdraw the budget championed by conservative Vice Chair David Ireland and restarted the process after petitioners collected enough signatures to force a referendum on the plan. One councilor expressed concern that a vote would undermine the council’s authority.
“We need to be demonstrating that our government is stable and predictable,” Councilor Gordon Street, who had pushed for smaller cuts throughout the budget process, said Wednesday.
Ireland retorted that the new budget undermined councilors. He claimed that after the initial budget passed on June 22, the town attorney advised more hearings were warranted due to the scope of Ireland’s amendments to the manager’s budget proposal. Then he said he was not permitted to bring up change to the revised proposal.
“In my view, that unnecessarily restricted the legislative authority granted to the Council under our Charter,” Ireland said in a Facebook post.
Two of the council’s four conservatives, who took control after elections in November, sided with the opposition to approve a new budget proposed by Lincoln’s town manager. Both former Republican state Rep. Sheldon Hanington and Councilor Eric Rojo had previously voted in favor of Ireland’s budget cuts, but backed off on Wednesday.
“It’s a delicate balance that you have to do as a policymaker,” Hanington said at the meeting. “I just wish that it didn’t go this way because there [are] a lot of friendships that ended. There’s a lot of bickering.”
Rojo, the other conservative who voted in favor of the new budget, thanked residents for coming out to meetings and encouraged them to stay engaged in town affairs.
Wednesday’s vote was a loss for Ireland, who had managed to pass his steep budget cuts over extreme opposition from town employees in a bid to lower tax burdens.
“The winner of last night’s budget is the status quo and higher property-tax bills this fall,” he said in his Facebook post.
Daniel O’Connor is a Report for America corps member who covers rural government as part of the partnership between the Bangor Daily News and The Maine Monitor, with additional support from BDN and Monitor readers.