Bangor council resolves ’07 budget issues

BANGOR – City councilors managed to squeeze a final budget workshop in before their regular meeting Monday night.

The purpose of the workshop was to decide the two remaining unresolved funding issues facing them as they worked to put the finishing touches on their proposed $78.7 million budget for municipal and school operations in the coming fiscal year, which begins July 1.

The first issue they needed to address was whether they should restore at a cost of $46,290 a police patrolman’s position cut during last year’s budget deliberations.

The other was whether to bump up financial aid for the Greater Bangor Convention & Visitors Bureau or stick with the annual 15 percent across-the-board reductions the councilors last year began imposing on the “outside agencies” the city supports, namely the CVB, Hammond Street Seniors Center, Fourth of July Corp., East West Highway Association and the Senior Little League World Series.

Both matters were discussed extensively during a three-hour budget workshop last Thursday night.

While councilors who attended that session were leaning toward funding the police position and sticking with the 15 percent funding cut for the CVB, they left the session without making a firm decision on either request.

After another round of consideration Monday, councilors voted to restore the police position and voted not to subject the CVB to a 15 percent cut, instead agreeing to fund the organization at this year’s level of $93,500.

“We’ll get you out of this, but we want a definite plan,” Council Chairman John Cashwell said.

To that end, the CVB decision came with strings attached. The CVB was given until Jan. 1 to provide a written “exit strategy” for weaning itself off city assistance within a set time frame, likely five years.

A piece of information that tipped the scales in the CVB’s favor was word that the organization has been told by the Internal Revenue Service that as a 501(c)(6) tax-exempt business league, the CVB cannot collect more than 50 percent of its operating money from user fees.

Until that point, charging fees was the thrust of the CVB plan for improving its own fiscal health and reducing its dependency on local tax dollars, said Donna Fichtner, executive director of the CVB. In making his case for restoring the police patrol post, Police Chief Don Winslow noted that the number of police responses had increased 10 percent in the last five years.

He also said that police were spending more time on calls because of mandated requirements and increased expertise in such areas as domestic violence, crisis intervention and property crime.

Winslow said some services the public now enjoys might need to be cut if the patrol division did not get some additional staffing.

Councilor Gerry Palmer was among several councilors who spoke in support of the police position.

“We are a safe community,” he said. “That’s what sells our community. That’s why I live here, that’s why you live here and that’s why a lot of other people live here.”

Both requests will be funded with savings found elsewhere in the budget, according to Finance Director Debbie Cyr.

The city’s actual cost for debt service in the latest round of bond sales came in at about $45,000 under projection, and health insurance costs for staff at the Bangor Public Library came in almost $20,000 less than expected.