Lincoln will search for a new town manager to oversee severe budget cuts that may make the search — and running the town — unusually difficult.
Town Manager Wade Shaefer resigned Monday night, just hours after the conservative majority controlling the town council passed budget cuts that went well beyond what he proposed. It made him the fourth manager to leave the job in months.
Maine towns often struggle for months to hire town managers. There were four posted listings on an association’s job board this week. Lincoln’s shoestring budget, administrative upheaval and heated political environment may make the search particularly tough.
In a resignation letter first obtained by News Center Maine, Shaefer, a pastor, said he’d been missing out on ministry as a result of his taking on the town manager job. His Pentecostal church is on Swan’s Island, a three-hour car and ferry ride away.
Across the town budget, Shaefer pushed for modest cuts that would have resulted in a roughly 2% budget increase, below inflation. The council’s slim conservative majority overruled him on Monday, passing a severe 12.8% budget reduction.
Shaefer had agreed to work for less than the typical town manager’s salary, which would have made the council’s budget cuts to the department easier to find. Shaefer’s department itself was slashed by 29.4%, with most of the reduction likely to come from wages.
He warned against such a severe reduction at Monday’s meeting and suggested a future town manager may be hard to find with such low pay.
“I’m not saying that I want to leave, but I do have other responsibilities that I really enjoy doing,” he said, foreshadowing the resignation that came hours later.
Conservative councillors have said that they’re open to passing a supplemental budget if cuts prove too deep for town departments to function normally. But one of those councillors, Eric Rojo, said Thursday that he’s “not sure” whether the town manager’s budget will need to increase.
“We just need to find somebody … that is qualified and doesn’t have other interests,” he said, referencing Shaefer’s decision to leave and focus on his church.
In 2025, the leader of the conservatives on the council, Vice Chair David Ireland, campaigned on a plan to oust longtime manager Richard Bronson, who resigned shortly after Ireland’s election.
The conservatives then recruited Andrew Frodahl to serve as town manager, but he declined the job just days before he was due to start. His replacement, Dennis Bullen, was fired after two months when the majority found him unwilling to push for the budget cuts they wanted.
They hired Shaefer, who had no municipal management experience, as interim town manager in May. The council had expected him to remain in the job for about six months, Rojo said. They got his resignation email almost exactly six weeks later.
Whoever takes over the role will likely face the task of managing departments reeling from layoffs and a bitterly divided town. Former Councilor George Edwards, who led an unsuccessful recall petition against the council’s four conservatives, said he hopes the town vets its candidates for Shaefer’s replacement.
“I can’t imagine there’s going to be many people lining up to want to take that job,” he said. “They’re walking into a vastly terrible situation.”
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.