AUGUSTA – Property tax relief, a push for funds to build the infrastructure needed to spur economic development and an effort to shift county jail construction costs from the local government to the state are on the Maine Service Centers Coalition agenda for 2002.

About 50 of the 69 regional service centers in Maine have formed a coalition and are in the process of hiring a lobbyist to give themselves some political clout when pushing for local reform. Ed Barrett, Bangor city manager, is president of the coalition.

Each of the service center communities has paid dues this year of 10 cents per capita or a minimum of $500 to become a member of the coalition. That has raised about $50,000, of which about one-half will be used for advocacy, Geoff Herman, director of state and federal relations for the Maine Municipal Association, said Monday. The MMA is providing the coalition with administrative services.

Service center communities – towns and cities that are home to regional medical facilities, county, state and federal government, jails and social service agencies – typically have higher property tax rates, a higher percentage of tax-exempt properties, and more demand on their infrastructures and services than communities that surround them.

“There has been, I think, a dramatically increasing level of awareness about the different types of burdens and impacts on municipalities, and there are some municipalities that are particularly positioned to undertake a disproportionate amount of the burden and they need some help; they can’t solve it on their own,” Herman said.

Toward that end, the coalition will serve as a mouthpiece for these communities in an effort to expand the public’s awareness of their unique issues, which include tax rates as high as $26 per $1,000 valuation, according to Herman.

The coalition has endorsed five initiatives that will be promoted to the Legislature, Herman said. Three of them are considered priorities. The first priority is the pursuit of the local option sales tax authority. LD 883, a local option initiative that was a holdover from the first legislative session, will be aired by the Taxation Committee at 1 p.m. Thursday at the State House. Herman expects many town officials will attend the hearing in support of the bill.

The idea behind the bill is to allow municipalities to establish a limited-duration local sales tax of up to one penny to pay for the construction of specific capital projects of regional significance, such as convention centers, regional schools and industrial parks. Such an effort would require a local referendum vote in each service center community seeking these funds.

Members of the coalition also regard the preservation of Revenue Sharing II and the Revenue Sharing increase from 5.1 percent to 5.2 percent of sales and income taxes, beginning January 2003, a matter of high priority, according to Herman.

The coalition also supports funding of the Municipal Investment Trust Fund that was established in 1993 to provide communities with nonproperty tax revenues to build the infrastructure needed for economic development and growth. Although the trust fund was developed, the Legislature has never funded it.

The service center communities also want to shift the costs of county jail construction from local property taxes to the state and want the Legislature to fund state subsidy adequately for education in 2003.

Officials in the service center communities view any reduction in the current 2003 appropriation as a “straightforward” shift to the property tax.

“The service center communities share a lot of issues in common,” Barrett said Monday. “We think it’s important the group is talking to each other and sharing ideas and talking with others to raise the awareness of the municipal community and state government as to the challenges and problems that service center communities are facing.”