Bangor adopts $68.8M budget, funds for ‘Jacks

BANGOR – City councilors adopted a $68.8 million total municipal and school operating budget for the fiscal year starting July 1.

While the budget development process spanned months and involved dozens of meetings among elected officials and city and school administrators, the budget adoption went relatively quickly Monday night.

The only budget issue that generated debate was a six-figure contribution toward improvements to the baseball facilities at Husson College, future home of the Bangor Lumberjacks.

The minor league baseball team, owned by Bangor businessman Charles “Chip” Hutchins, embarked on its first season in May. For lack of a suitable place to play in Bangor, however, the team currently uses the University of Maine’s facilities in Orono.

The team and Husson College came to the city earlier with a request for more than $800,000, Councilor Dan Tremble said in a brief recap of the events leading to Monday’s decision.

When that amount proved unpalatable to city officials, he said, “they retrenched and we worked.” But even with the addition of private funds, the project budget still came up short. Lumberjacks supporters returned to the city with a request for $381,000.

After a final review of the request during a committee meeting last week, councilors agreed to set aside $250,000.

However, after some councilors expressed concern that the reduced contribution might scuttle the project, City Manager Edward Barrett agreed to schedule a meeting with the parties involved.

The $131,000 balance was restored Monday as a result of that meeting. Husson’s offer of a $50,000 scholarship for a local high school graduate sweetened the pot.

According to Barrett, the contribution will not affect the property tax rate. The funding will come from the city’s undesignated fund balance and from savings from previous city projects that came in under budget, he said.

Councilors saw the Lumberjacks as good economic development.

Councilor Frank Farrington cast the sole vote against the contribution last week because he did not consider it essential, given the city’s budgetary constraints. His position did not change during the week that elapsed and he found himself on the losing side of a 7-1 vote.

Farrington was not the only one at the meeting who had reservations about the Lumberjack funding.

Residents Hal Wheeler, who has held numerous positions with the city, and Nathaniel Rosenblatt, a local attorney, were the only two residents who addressed the council during the budget deliberations.

Wheeler said that while he did not question the council’s good intentions, he did not believe it was appropriate to contribute city funds to a “privately owned, for-profit enterprise.”

“I just feel that in these times of increased property valuation, which will result in higher property taxes, this is not an appropriate use of tax dollars,” he said.

Rosenblatt’s concerns had to do with the impact that moving the Lumberjacks – whose schedule this year calls for 46 home games – to Husson College could have on his neighborhood.

A resident of Valley Avenue, Rosenblatt said the city needed to make sure that such matters as traffic management, outdoor lights and the level of sound from the ball field’s public address system are considered as the project moves forward.The product of months of deliberation, the 2003-04 budget kicks in July 1.

While it decreased the city’s tax rate from $23.60 to $23.35 per $1,000 in property valuation, not all property owners would realize savings, however, because of increases in individual property values, Barrett cautioned this month. He said the average taxpayer would pay about 2 percent more in property taxes than this year.

As things stand, the municipal budget plan amounts to $34.8 million, up 3 percent from this year. The $34 million education budget plan shows a slightly smaller increase, up 2.6 percent. The tax levy would total $38.5 million, a 2.7 percent increase.

Other factors that go into setting the tax rate are the county tax bill, up 4 percent from this year, and a cushion to cover unanticipated property tax abatements, reduced to $312,000 from the initially budgeted $350,000 to help balance the budget.

Barrett said earlier that the proposed budget more or less maintains the current level of city and school services.

A factor that helped keep operating costs in check was the fact that city and school revenues are slated to increase 2.5 percent. In addition, health insurance costs for city workers should drop 4 percent after several years of increases, some of them in the double digits.

Also helpful is that school debt will cost $130,000 less than this year’s $1.9 million.