Commissioners explain communities’ tax leap > Unorganized territories react to increase

ELLSWORTH — It was a lesson in county government when 10 residents from the county’s unorganized territories met with the Hancock County Commission this week to learn why their property taxes had jumped nearly 80 percent.

Although the commissioners underwent an intense question and answer period, the general mood of the meeting was friendly and conciliatory. Doreen Sheive, the state’s fiscal administrator for the unorganized territories, also attended the Tuesday meeting.

Sheive handed out two documents that explained the budget breakdown for the state’s unorganized territories. She said that the overall tax commitment for the territories had increased 18.8 percent in the area of state and county services, but property taxes in Hancock County’s unorganized territories rose 80 percent. “In other words, if they normally had a $500 tax bill, they got a $900 tax bill this year,” she said.

She said that although last year $159,019 was budgeted for the unorganized territories, this year’s total budget was $194,250. After estimated revenue, the county had to raise $175,242. The property-tax payers learned that $25,000 was placed in the contingency account and $62,500 was placed in the capital reserve account for the 1993-94 fiscal year. The commissioners said they did not believe next year’s budget increase would duplicate this year’s.

The commissioners said part of the problem was that the surplus account was exhausted. They said that for the last 12 years, they relied on the surplus to cushion the impact of the budget. This year, they said, the gold mine had been shut down. Several residents asked why the commissioners had continued to dip into the surplus until it was exhausted. Their reply was that they would have preferred to see the budget increase incrementally, but the state had forced them to spend down the surplus.

Property owners at the meeting described themselves as the unrecognized few. For the most part, they were owners of property on islands west of Deer Isle. Many of them were summer residents of Bear, Beach and Eagle islands and Great and Little Spruce Head islands, but several said they were year-round residents.

They learned that many of the cost increases reflected in their property taxes were based on state actions. State mandates, for example, forced the county to close landfills, and that had an impact on local budgets.

The island residents said they did not mind paying their share of taxes, but they said many of the services provided for other county residents were not available to them. They said they had neither fire nor police protection and had to carry their trash off the island, because there was no place to dump it. They said they did not believe it was fair for them to pay for services that did not benefit them.

Commissioner Eugene L. Churchill said this was a common complaint. He said many communities with their own police departments did not believe they should have to pay for county police services. “But they still have to,” Churchill said.

Another resident said the islands received no services from the county. He said there was no crime on the islands so those communities never used the county jail.

For a few minutes it was questionable if the islands noted were on the state map. Churchill drew laughter from the group when he said he had been unaware that they were in the county’s second district.

The commissioners praised the residents for their effort to draw attention to their cause, and encouraged them to take an active part in next year’s unorganized territory budgeting process.