Facing a budget shortfall of $300,000, the town of Dexter is looking at options to increase revenue or reduce expenses.

“The questions,” said town manager Bob Simpson, “come down to: Can we turn on the lights? Can we keep people hired?”

The fiscal gaze is also falling on Dexter Municipal Golf Course, the town-owned nine-hole course. Dexter is one of only five municipalities in the state to own a golf course.

Simpson believes what’s happening with Dexter’s course may be a harbinger for the other munis – both 18-hole and nine-hole layouts at Bangor Municipal Golf Course and Riverside Municipal Golf Course in Portland, nine holes at South Portland Municipal Golf Course, and 18 holes at Val Halla Golf Course in Cumberland Center.

There are three options available for Dexter – sell it, lease it, or stand pat – according to Simpson, but he considers the last two the only reasonable alternatives.

“It’s too much of a plus to the town to sell,” said Simpson. “If we did sell it, we would lose a vital part of the attractiveness of the community.”

As Dexter tries to attract other firms to reverse the employment downturn the town suffered when Dexter Shoe Co. closed its operation, Simpson believes the golf course has a role to play, despite the fact it lost money last year.

“When we talk to businesses, we can highlight the airport, the golf course, and recreation that towns with population less than 5,000 don’t have,” said Simpson.

The loss of Dexter Shoe sent the golf course into the red last year because fewer people purchased memberships.

“We budgeted $86,500 for expenses, and they only [used] $80,000, so they did a good job keeping expenses down,” said Simpson.

“Usually in the past, memberships covered expenses,” Simpson continued. “[Last year, membership] revenues were only 80 percent – $69,000 [budgeted] down to $55,000.

“This year, the budget [for expenses] is going from $85,000 to $102,583 primarily because we’re taking money out of the capital reserve budget … to fix cart paths and make improvements inside the clubhouse. Even though the money is coming from the capital reserve account, it has to be accounted for somewhere as an expense.”

Under a lease from the town, an operator would handle the expenses, collect the revenue, and pay a fee to the town.

What Simpson hopes is the lessor isn’t someone who squeezes the operation, for instance, and turns it over to the town at the end of the lease a golf course and its equipment that will need a lot of work or replacement to be restored to proper condition.

The town, said Simpson, already has a private maintenance agreement for the cemeteries and has privatized the ambulance service because of a recommendation by a committee last year.

A committee is being put together now, according to Simpson, to conduct budget workshops for the next fiscal year, which runs July 1-June 30.

“I expect the council will consider some element of privatization at the workshops,” said Simpson, who thinks it’s possible the operation will stay the way it is now.

“The reality is that’s it’s tough to make a golf course a paying operation in rural Maine,” said Simpson.

He sounded his frustration at the lack of help he sees from the state as far as improving the economic picture.

“We’ve got a government trying its best to kill central Maine,” stated Simpson.

Speirs going to national tourney

Jesse Speirs of Bangor qualified for the Future Collegians World Tour national championship with a seventh-place finish in the eastern regional championship last weekend at Lake Nona Golf Course in Orlando, Fla.

Speirs, 16, shot a 54-hole total of 221, five strokes off the pace set by Michael Young of Jacksonville, Fla.

The top 30 players from the eastern regional advanced to the national championship, set for May 23-26 on the Blue Monster course at Doral Golf Resort and Spa in Miami.

Seventy-nine boys ages 16-19 were selected to play in the eastern regional based on their performances in FCWT events this season.

Dave Barber can be reached at 990-8170, 1-800-310-8600, or by e-mail at dbarber@bangordailynews.net.