Penobscot County Commissioners recommended a 27.6% budget jump for 2027 after a divisive budget meeting Friday.
The spike stems from rising maintenance costs, cost of living adjustments, employee benefit costs and interest payments, according to budget documents. All but one department, the unorganized territory administration, have a proposed increased budget for 2027 compared to 2026, but it does not fully fund county departments, County Administrator Blair Tinkham said.
Penobscot County’s budget spike comes one year after County Commissioners David Marshall, Andre Cushing and Dan Tremble approved a more than 15% budget hike that mostly stemmed from a need to fully fund the Penobscot County Jail, which has drained roughly $11 million from county reserve funds since 2022. It’s unclear how the surge will increase the tax commitment for county residents, but it is likely to create a roughly $50 jump per county resident from this year’s commitment.
Although taxes will go up, not every community will see the same increase on their tax bills because local taxes are dispersed among school, municipal and county budgets. Last year’s jump saw some Greater Bangor communities pay hundreds of thousands in additional tax to the county, which equated to taxpayers paying roughly six cents more per $1,000 in property value.
The amount to be raised through taxes, which still needs to be approved by the county’s budget advisory committee, rose to roughly $36 million from this year’s $29 million.
Although expenses rose, four proposed positions – employees in the finance department, administrator’s office, maintenance department and emergency management agency – will not be funded. A grant manager, sheriff’s deputy and one additional maintenance employee, which were not included in last year’s budget, were funded.
The county will also not pay back funds borrowed from its unorganized territory department that the county used this year to cover expenses when it did not have enough cash on hand. Departments will also be funded at 85% of their requested expenditures.
In total, more than $2 million was removed from a first budget proposal that fully funded all departments.
Although monies were cut from the initially proposed budget, some funds were also added.
County commissioners want to raise additional money through taxes for the jail that exceed limits set by state law. County officials hope that the legislature will raise those limits in January, allowing them to raise an additional $3 million to fund the jail.
The county is proposing raising roughly $15 million for funding the Penobscot County Jail, a $3 million jump from the current budget. The spike is more than the yearly 4% increase allowed under state law, but Tinkham said the county is allowed to recoup funds from previous years when the county undertaxed municipalities. The county did not tax towns the amount it could for jail operations since 2022, he said.
The recommended amount is more than is required to fund jail operations and would allow the county to add $1 million to its depleted reserves.
The additional $1 million, which was brought forward as a motion from Cushing, divided commissioners before being approved. Cushing’s motion initially failed because Marshall and Tremble did not second it. After saying he wanted the motion’s failure reflected in the meeting minutes, Tinkham said the increase is the only way to bring in a large amount of revenue in one year.
“I want to be on record saying, I don’t like the number, but it is the mechanism for us to start recouping our fund balance,” Tinkham said.
In a second attempt, Marshall seconded Cushing’s motion. With Tremble voting against, the motion passed 2-1.
While the $15 million figure will be recommended to the budget committee, it will be accompanied by a narrative outlining that it’s unclear if the additional million dollars will be legal under the state’s 4% increase cap. Tinkham, who said he believes it is legal, will ask a municipal lawyer for an opinion. If it’s found to be illegal, the county will remove the additional funding, he said, but keep the $14 million figure.
In his understanding, Tinkham said, if the county commissioners and county budget advisory committee pass the jail budget increase, it will be legally binding.
The roughly 28% increase was one of five options brought before the commissioners in a meeting Thursday afternoon. The options varied from a nearly 32% spike to a roughly 22% jump.
Commissioners Marshall and Cushing voted to recommend the budget increase Thursday with Tremble voting against.
When sharing the multiple options with commissioners Thursday, Tinkham told commissioners he believes the only reason not to fully fund county operations and departments is political backlash. Disagreements between Commissioners Marshall and Tremble reflected the difference between keeping taxes low and appeasing taxpayers, or fully funding the county.
“I know there’s no question about what the staff’s doing and the work they’re doing, but the people in my district in Bangor are paying $6 a gallon to heat their house, and the other city services are going up, county services going up. They just can’t keep taking these hits,” Tremble said Thursday.
Tremble voted against all but four departmental budgets Friday. The ones he voted for did not have increased capital reserve funding.
“[The lowest] options now before us sounds like, well, we’re just going to kick it down the road again this year, but just a little less further,” Marshall said Thursday.
Thursday and Friday’s meetings, which were the most divisive of the past year and were rare occurrences of commissioners not voting unanimously, come on the heels of a year of commissioners and county officials enacting a hiring freeze, working on plans to change the county’s budget year from a calendar cycle to a fiscal year system, and searching for additional revenue to offset rising costs. Additionally, commissioners have been planning to build a new jail.
Funding for plans or engineering for a new Penobscot County Jail are not included in the budget.
A staff hiring freeze coupled with a $1 million cut to the 2026 proposed budget from the county’s budget committee have led to employees being overworked, Tinkham said when advocating for departments to be fully funded, which would have led to nearly 32% budget hike.
“I think it’s misunderstood how invaluable these services are and how much stress this full-time workforce has had to sacrifice to meet the operational needs of what they provide for Penobscot County,” Tinkham said Thursday.
The budget will be sent to the county’s budget advisory committee for approval. The committee will meet on Nov. 4 and 5.