Brewer budget cuts keep tax rate in check

BREWER – Though key staffers were still crunching numbers earlier this week, it appears that city and school officials have met their mandate for next year’s property tax rate.

The tax rate, as well as the municipal and school budgets, will be set during a special City Council meeting at 5 p.m., Thursday, at City Hall.

After experiencing a serious case of sticker shock this spring, the City Council asked municipal and school administrators to work to keep the city’s tax rate – now at $24.23 per $1,000 in property valuation – from edging over the $25 mark.

That target was established after draft school and municipal budgets were presented that would have required a tax hike of $4 per $1,000.

“That was really a motivation,” City Manager Stephen Bost said. “When we saw that, everyone worked overtime to bring it down.”

According to Bost and Finance Director Karen McVey, the steps that have been taken not only kept the tax rate below the $25 target, it appears the final rate will be under $24.50.

After three rounds of budget cuts, municipal officials created a draft budget totaling $8,198,078. They have since produced a fourth, ending up with the $8,048,053 proposal that city councilors will consider this week. The gross budget plan for 2001-02 reflects a 1.84 percent increase from this year.

According to Bost, the municipal budget plan maintains the existing level of services, yet funds such projects and needs as the proposed parallel access road that would open up some of the undeveloped land between Wilson Street and Interstate 395, the Lambert Road reconstruction project and a new snowplow.

On the school side, a $13,086,943 proposal has undergone three rounds of cuts. The current $12,489,675 budget plan is about 4.8 percent higher than this year’s budget.

The leaner school budget calls for several staffing cuts, though educational programming has remained relatively unscathed.

Though the budget cuts helped hold the tax rate down, Bost and McVey attributed a large part of the city’s success to the new property valuation Assessor Mary Lynne Hunter picked up. As of late Tuesday, Bost said, the projected increase amounted to $22 million.

According to Hunter, much of the new value came from adjustments to the assessments of numerous Brewer properties, some of which had not changed for almost a decade, despite increased market prices for other properties in the same neighborhood.

Hunter researched the sale prices of dozens of properties in several Brewer neighborhoods, working with a sales-ratio analysis contractor to bring undervalued properties into line with the rest of the city. That work was still underway late Tuesday.

McVey said that the added tax income from the city valuation increase helped absorb the bulk of the increases the city faces next year in fixed costs.

Brewer’s budget landscape has changed somewhat since last year, when the council, despite a modest increase on the education side of the balance sheet, managed to pull off the first property tax decrease here since at least as far back as 1960.

This year, school and municipal officials alike have had to deal with the double whammy of flat revenues and rising costs. Many of the expenses both face in the year ahead are either fixed by contract or are beyond local control.

They say a souring state and regional economy is taking a toll on such income sources as state revenue sharing, vehicle excise tax and registration receipts. Meanwhile, the costs for a range of essential school and municipal services are projected to increase.

Preventing the tax rate from skyrocketing has required sacrifices and staffing cuts on the part of Brewer’s municipal and school operations. Fewer employees will have to do more in the year ahead.

City officials can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel. According to McVey, Brewer should begin to reap the benefits of some of its recent economic development – a major Eastern Maine Healthcare expansion and a Wal-Mart Supercenter to name a few – the year after next.