Comments on county budget plan mixed

DOVER-FOXCROFT – Piscataquis County commissioners have a balancing act ahead as they weigh comments aired Monday during a public hearing on the proposed county and unorganized territory budgets.

While some town officials had hoped to convince commissioners to reduce the nearly $3.5 million county budget, others expressed support for their attempts to stimulate the economy and to bring parity in wages among county employees and their municipal counterparts.

Commissioners will decide the final spending plan for the county by the end of the year. While the commissioners will adopt the unorganized territory budget of $963,290 next month, the Legislative Taxation Committee has the ability to revise that spending plan.

Besides funding normal operations within the county, the proposed county budget includes a corrections officer position for the Piscataquis County Jail and a dispatcher position for the sheriff’s department; $75,000 for the Piscataquis County Economic Development Corp.; $100,000 for contingency; $40,000 for capital improvements in the courthouses to address regulations from the Americans with Disabilities Act; an increase in the base wage from $6.82 to $8.50 per hour for nonunion employees; and a 10 percent pay increase for department heads.

Elaine Roberts, administrative assistant to the district attorney, urged county officials to keep the base wage increase in the budget as proposed, rather than implement the increase over a three-year period as the appointed budget advisory committee recommended.

According to a survey conducted by county officials, most towns within the county already have a base wage of $8.50 for 2003. If the county wage was to be increased to $8.50 over three years, the county employees would still continue to lag behind because municipal employees likely would receive additional increases in those years, Roberts said.

“We work very hard for the citizens of this county, sometimes well above and beyond the call of duty, and we deserve to be paid a respectable wage,” Roberts said.

Brownville Town Manager Sophia Wilson also recognized the need for parity in wages. She said that while employees in her town have not had a raise in two years and the town was downsizing, the employee on the back of the garbage truck who has no skills receives $7 an hour. “We need to put that into perspective,” she said.

But for Jim Gustafson, a Bowerbank selectman, the budget was too high. “A huge tax increase now will take more money out of the pockets of Piscataquis citizens, depressing our economy further at a time when the county unemployment rate is almost 50 percent higher than the overall state unemployment level,” he said. “You can’t tax your way to prosperity.”

Abbot resident Janice MacAllister also said spending should be reduced. She suggested that county residents need to take a “good long look at every budget and see what can be done to correct it.”