Many coastal towns reject Question 1

ELLSWORTH – Some of the wealthiest communities in coastal Maine rejected the Question 1 property tax measure on Tuesday’s ballot, despite their continued anxiety over increasing property taxes and spiraling education costs.

Bar Harbor Town Manager Dana Reed and others in the midcoast region of Maine said no one should assume the vote results imply coastal homeowners don’t want property tax relief.

“I would never draw that conclusion,” Reed said Wednesday. “Our whole focus [when drafting the municipal budget] is: ‘How much is this going to raise taxes?'”

Meanwhile, school boards – at least those on MDI – are less sensitive about taxpayers’ concerns, and focus instead on providing the best education possible for students.

It was that very dynamic that compelled the Maine Municipal Association to bring the issue to referendum and force the state to keep its pledge to pay 55 percent of all kindergarten through grade 12 education costs, up from about 43 percent today.

However, because the new infusion of cash – an estimated $250 million a year – will continue to be distributed through the complex General Purpose Aid formula, the property-rich communities in Maine will get nothing in increased general school funding. They get virtually no GPA funding now.

The GPA formula is based primarily on a community’s property value, on the theory that the larger the tax base, the easier it is to raise money locally.

For example, 1 mill of property tax in Bar Harbor raises $830,000, while 1 mill in Fort Kent raises $130,000, according to town officials.

The formula, once recognized as a national model, tries to balance school funding so that Fort Kent students have the same basic education opportunities as pupils in Bar Harbor.

The richer towns, however, would receive 100 percent reimbursement for special education costs under Question 1, which Reed said were “not insignificant but pale in comparison” to overall education spending.

Bar Harbor residents voted down the referendum on a 328-190 vote.

Roger Raymond, Bucksport town manager, speculated Wednesday that many voters didn’t understand the measure. Specifically, Raymond said some people thought every school district would get 55 percent for education, when in fact the “richer” towns will continue to get paltry allotments.

Raymond also thought some voters did not understand that Question 1 calls for the state to pay 100 percent of special education costs.

“I don’t really think a lot of people understood” the technicalities of the measure, said Raymond, whose town rejected Question 1 by a 273-190 margin.

Mark Hurvitt, superintendent of School Union 93, said he had no insight Wednesday into why all four of the towns in his district rejected the question.

Hurvitt said he personally voted against the measure because he didn’t think it was a logical way to address Maine’s property tax problems.

The measure was “too complicated,” he added, speculating that might have put off some voters.

Union 93 includes Blue Hill, Castine, Penobscot and Brooksville.