MACHIAS, Maine — The Washington County Commission pushed back Thursday against steep 2027 budget increases after accepting the 2023 audit, which showed the county ended that year $1.2 million in the red.
Finance Director Jenny Windsor, who was hired in April, told commissioners the fiscal year 2023 audit was completed on schedule at the end of July and showed a $1.2 million net loss.
“It wasn’t much of a surprise to anybody,” she said, noting that audits from 2019 through 2022 also showed net losses.
Windsor said the losses appeared in audit reports year after year, adding, “So the position that the county ended up in in 2025 — you all were surprised, but it should not have been a surprise had these audits been done timely.”
As with prior audits, this year’s auditor, Wipfli, found inadequate accounting records and commingled funds; slow or missing account reconciliations, including cash reconciliation; poor documentation for bank transfers; no accounting policies and procedures manual; weak controls over processing and recording financial transactions; inadequate grant tracking; no accounting of capital assets; inadequate cash flow; and repeated expenditures that exceeded budget appropriations.
The audit also pointed to multiple recommendations made in prior years that were never implemented, including properly reconciling accounts; controlling spending over revenue; adopting a policies manual; tracking grants; and properly transferring and accounting for Registry of Deeds surcharge funds.
Commission Chair David Burns asked Windsor to go through the net losses back to 2019. Windsor said that, according to the audits, 2019 expenses were budgeted at $7.7 million, taxation was set at $6.2 million and other revenue was budgeted at $88,565, for a budget loss of $92,023.
In 2020, expenses were budgeted at $8.1 million, taxation was set at $6.3 million and other revenue was budgeted at $1.3 million, leaving a budget loss of $470,704.
Expenses for fiscal 2021 were budgeted at $8.1 million, taxation was set at $6.3 million and other revenue was budgeted at $1.7 million, for a loss of $332,443.
In 2022, expenses were budgeted at $9.6 million, taxation was set at $6.6 million and other revenue was budgeted at $1.7 million, for a loss of $1.3 million.
Windsor said the figures show a cumulative four‑year loss of $2.2 million, “and then you tack on 2023, with a $1.2 million loss, there’s no doubt how we arrived in 2025 needing an ask of $6.9 million from taxpayers.”
Commissioner Billy Howard, clearly containing himself, sat forward and said Windsor’s summary “shows a lack of management, leadership and oversight for years.”
“If these audits had been done, it would have been one thing,” Howard said, “but even staying within the lines just wasn’t happening.”
Windsor agreed.
“There was no oversight. There was no control,” she said. “It has taken all four of us [in the finance department] to get through 2023 in the manner that we have. There’s no way we can start the 2024 [audit] on Monday.”
Windsor said the department is also working on the fiscal 2027 budget and is in the midst of two overdue audits for the Unorganized Territory.
“The numbers are quite shocking,” she said.
At a budget workshop earlier this month, Windsor warned commissioners that rising overtime in multiple departments could endanger the county’s ability to fully repay the 2026 tax anticipation note, or TAN, and she raised that warning again.
“We’re trying to get people to stay within their lines this year because if we don’t meet the budgeted revenue, we’re not going to be able to pay the TAN off. That’s why we are picking everyone apart.”
Commissioners unanimously accepted the 2023 audit, and then Burns picked up Windsor’s sentiment, saying he was not comfortable sending the 2027 budget that commissioners reviewed Aug. 5 to the Budget Advisory Committee with a 40% increase.
“I just don’t understand how on earth we’re going to do this this year — a 40% increase,” Burns said, asking his fellow commissioners, “At what point in time are we going to decide, as a commission, what this county can afford.”
Burns said the commission’s first pass at the budget was “like a fire hose. Some of the increases are unacceptable.”
For example, he said, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office budget requests include buying 11 vehicles when he thought two or three was enough.
“We have a request for filling three slots in the sheriff’s office. I think that’s a little steep,” Burns said. “I’m really not comfortable with all three of those being filled. I think we need to find a way to better regulate overtime, not just in this department but in other departments that seem to be going over.”
Burns said he did not mean to pick on the sheriff’s office, but he went over the proposed budget again by himself after it was reviewed by the full commission and said he could not support it with what he called “phenomenal increases” in too many departments.
Praising the finance department staff and senior administrators, who he said work incredibly hard, Burns said the county must have a “properly staffed finance department, a properly trained finance department so we can run this county without running it into the red. It’s one of the problems of the past. There wasn’t enough oversight.”
To ensure that staff, though, Burns said the county has an obligation to “pay them what they’re entitled to. Pay them what they’re worth. Pay them so we have retention.”
The commission and the Budget Advisory Committee fulfill different roles in the budget approval process, but Burns thinks the budget committee could benefit from the commission’s advice to bring down costs.
Howard agreed, saying, “There’s no possible way that people in this county can afford that kind of increase,” which will force the county to consider trimming services.
“There’s no way around it,” he said, even for needed services. “The taxpayers just can’t keep going like this.”
Sheriff Barry Curtis defended his department’s budget requests, saying, “Needing those cars is not something we created.”
He said the department’s high‑mileage vehicles are costing taxpayers through unexpected, and often expensive, repairs.
“We can’t just leave them on the side of the road,” Curtis said, and fixing the cars can often be more expensive than buying new. “You can’t keep cutting the law enforcement of Washington County because we’re going to be in trouble that you can’t believe.”
Commissioner Courtney Hammond said, “My only comment would be the overtime we had during the budget discussion” in early August, and he would like to work with the sheriff’s office to find solutions to reduce those costs.
The first meeting of the Budget Advisory Committee has yet to be scheduled.
In other matters, and after a brief discussion about whether to go with a local vendor or the low bidder, the commission awarded a bid for solid waste disposal to Casella Waste Systems.
The county had been using Ohio Brook Disposal in Pembroke, which bid $750 a month to provide one 10‑yard dumpster to be emptied twice a week for two years.
Casella’s bid for the same work was $675 monthly.
David Lund, the county’s buildings and grounds supervisor, recommended the county stay with Ohio Brook Disposal based on a comfort level working with the local company in the past.
Windsor recommended commissioners go with Casella as the low bidder.
The difference between the bids over the two‑year term is $1,800.
Hammond pointed out that Casella is a local company, with transfer stations in Jonesboro and Columbia.
“They are a significant taxpayer in the county,” he said, and he made a motion to accept Casella’s bid.
Burns and Howard voted in support of the motion.
As the meeting was nearing the two‑hour mark, the livestream was Zoombombed, meaning an outside party broke into the online feed and displayed multiple moving pornographic images that shocked viewers and staff members monitoring the feed.
Seconds later, the livestream was shut down, and Burns told Monitor Local on Friday that the county’s information technology contractor, The Computer Guy in East Machias, will be asked to look into the incident and how it can be prevented in the future.
After the livestream ended, the commission meeting briefly continued as commissioners discussed naming Windsor as the county’s Freedom of Access Act officer, who is now trained and certified to fill that role.
The commission has scheduled a special meeting for Wednesday morning to meet with legal counsel in executive session.
This story appears as part of a collaboration to strengthen investigative journalism in Maine between the BDN and The Maine Monitor. Read more about the partnership.