Millinocket reports effects of tax cap plan

MILLINOCKET – The proposed property tax cap that voters will consider Nov. 2 would cut nonmandated services and municipal employment to the bone, according to a report prepared by the town manager.

Town Manager Gene Conlogue said Tuesday that if the cap had been in place in the 2004 fiscal year, the town’s municipal service budget of $3,589,354 would have been slashed to $1,025,018.

Of that sum, $785,783 is contractually committed to pay for tax increment financing district rebates, business incentives for two local companies, Katahdin Paper Co. and Specialty Minerals Inc.

Only $239,235 would be left to pay for all municipal services, forcing serious cuts in town amenities.

Among the programs to take hits in a worst-case scenario are:

. The Parks and Recreation Department would be eliminated.

. The library would shut down.

. And 19 full-time and seven part-time employees would be laid off.

In addition to these measures, full-time fire and ambulance services would be eliminated and police patrol officers would work each shift alone.

The tax cap referendum was initiated by a citizen petition and will be on the Nov. 2 ballot. If it passes, it would cap property taxes at 1 percent of their assessed 1996-97 value.

Conlogue said the ominous tone of the scenario accurately reflects the grim reality of Millinocket’s future under the Palesky tax cap.

“It is not scare tactics that municipalities are using,” he said. “We are simply stating a scary reality.”

Town councilors, who are known to not always see eye-to-eye, unanimously passed an anti-Palesky resolution at the Sept. 9 town meeting.

Conlogue’s report on the estimated impact the tax cap would have on Millinocket uses figures based on the 2003 tax valuations for the town, not the 1996 valuations specified by the proposal.

The loss of the library and parks and recreation services would hit the town hard, he said.

“I think libraries and [recreation] services are essential parts of the community,” Conlogue said. “The library is part of the fabric of the community … to think about not having a library – to me, it is just a terrible loss.”

Conlogue expressed indignation that this “one-size fits all” solution to the property tax problem would be applied to Millinocket’s particular situation.

“It’s a dangerous approach,” he said. “The bill is so terribly defective. You never, ever pass a bad bill just to pass a law … there’s no guarantee that anything else would be passed down the road.”

In addition to the municipal budget reductions, the town likely would need to eliminate $724,000 that composes the school district’s additional local share, all funds over and above what the state requires towns to pay for schools.

The money probably would be found by cuts to extracurricular activities, sports, music and other programs, Conlogue said.

The town, still struggling to come back from the loss of Great Northern Paper, had mill rates of $24.50 per $1,000 of property valuation in 1999, when Conlogue was hired as town manager. Through budget reductions and modernization of the paper mill, the mill rate dropped to its current rate of $19.40 per $1,000 of valuation. No town employees were laid off.

Conlogue said that he is proud of what the town did on its own to lower property taxes.

“It’s not as if in Millinocket we’ve been ignoring the taxpayers,” he said.