AUGUSTA – The line was long to testify Wednesday, but the sentiment was united: five Somerset County state representatives, one Somerset County senator, two ranking Somerset County budget committee members and one county commissioner were all opposed to a bill that would have stripped the county budget committee of all power.

“I’m getting the idea that Somerset County is opposed,” said Sen. Elizabeth Schneider, D-Orono, chairwoman of the Committee on State and Local Government, after the testimony.

LD 1003 was proposed by Sen. Louise Snowe-Mello, R-Androscoggin, to solve what the Androscoggin commissioners believe is a problem with their 11-member budget committee.

But Somerset County Commissioner Paul Hatch asked Snowe-Mello to include Somerset’s budget committee in the measure after a particularly acrimonious budget year.

The bill would strip the budget committee of all power, reducing it to an advisory board. Hatch told the committee that “what we experienced was unprofessional,” and accused the budget committee of trying to manage county policy by withholding funds.

Not a single member of Somerset County’s delegation endorsed the bill, and Reps. Stacey Fitts, R-Pittsfield, Philip Curtis, R-Madison, Douglas Thomas, R-Ripley, Wright Pinkham, R-Bingham, and Vaughn Stedman, R-Hartland, all testified against it, as did Sen. Peter Mills, R-Skowhegan.

Republican commissioner Robert Dunphy sent a message to the committee that he was also opposed.

“It’s a partisan effort,” said Hatch, a Democrat, referring to the Republican county delegation’s united opposition. Hatch said the budget committee’s actions this year left the county without funds to conduct business. In particular he cited cuts to the jail budget, which is already nearing overdraft status because of the high volume of prisoners that must be boarded elsewhere.

Somerset budget committee chairman D. Dwight Dogherty of Pittsfield and Vice Chairman Philip Roy of Fairfield also testified against the bill.

Dogherty, the former town manager of Pittsfield, has been chairman of the 10-year-old committee for six years and said the committee represents municipal leaders with decades of experience and it has been working well.

He said the commissioners, who disagreed with many of the committee’s cost cutting measures this year, developed an attitude of “if you can’t play the game by my rules, I’m going to take my ball and go home.”

Dogherty said the bill would eliminate checks and balances within county financing. “It will lead to uncontrolled county spending,” he said.

A work session on LD 1003 was set for 1 p.m. Wednesday, March 30.

At the same hearing, Mills proposed LD 990, which would allow a new Somerset County jail to be built within one mile of the county seat, Skowhegan. This would give the commissioners options in selecting a site, said Mills.

Hatch testified that the construction of a jail has been “studied for a decade or more while construction costs have risen 10 percent per year.” Hatch said a vote will be taken by county residents this June on a jail proposal. The work session of LD 990 is also set for 1 p.m. Wednesday, March 30.