County panel OKs $13.2 million budget

Despite substantial increases in costs, Penobscot County officials managed to come in with a $13.2 million budget that both met state restrictions on spending and reduced the tax rate, if only slightly.

The budget as approved Tuesday night at the second and final meeting of the Penobscot County budget committee represents a total tax commitment by county municipalities of $9.47 million. That figure represents an increase of $453,743 from last year, although it is under by about $65,000 the maximum tax increase the county was allowed under the LD 1 tax cap approved by Maine voters. The remainder of the budget comes from county revenue.

Although not all property valuation figures are in for the county, the 2006 budget approved this week represented a slight drop in the mill rate, about 5 cents per thousand dollars of valuation.

Budget committee members said that the end results showed that the county is acting with fiscal responsibility.

“I believe that the county is very realistic in its approach to both revenue and expenditures and it takes its fiduciary responsibility very seriously when it comes to marshalling the assets and the responsibilities of the county,” Corinth Selectman and county budget committee member Dexter Wilson said Tuesday after the meeting.

While the 5 cent mill rate drop may not seem like much, even getting the budget to this point and keeping it within the LD 1 constraints in light of double-digit increases in insurance costs and rising fuel costs wasn’t easy, officials said. Fuel costs were budgeted to go up 50 percent in the sheriff’s office alone, county officials said.

In coming up with the budget, county officials looked for places where they could cut costs while still providing services.

The Penobscot County Jail, for example, is increasingly using work release and jail diversion programs to reduce high-cost crowding situations. These programs are helping to divert some mental health patients into much needed community resources and away from the jail, where currently two-thirds of jail inmates are taking mental health medicines, Sheriff Glenn Ross told the committee.