’07 budgets for UT, Piscataquis advance

DOVER-FOXCROFT – No one complained about the proposed 2007 budgets for Piscataquis County and the Unorganized Territory during a public hearing Monday, likely because less is being asked from property taxes.

The commissioners will finish the budgets next month.

The few residents who joined county employees Monday at the hearing learned that the assessment to towns for county government would be 2 percent less and the assessment to the Unorganized Territory would be 0.4 percent less than last year.

“There are some special circumstances that allow us to do that,” Owen Pratt, interim county manager, said Monday. He said many of the county budget proposals – which include a new furnace, a generator, and jail improvements – will be funded from surplus.

Commissioners propose using $535,000 of the $965,519 in surplus to help defray the county spending plan.

Most of the increases in the proposed $4.4 million county budget are related to salaries and capital expenditures, according to Pratt.

A 4 percent cost-of-living-increase requested by county employees was reduced to 2.5 percent as recommended by the county budget advisory committee.

Also proposed is a change in insurance plans. Pratt said the county is in a “crisis mode” because of insurance costs.

The county pays 100 percent of the health premium for those employees hired before July 1995. That coverage is for the individual, his or her spouse, and-or family.

For those hired after July 1995, the county pays 100 percent of the employee’s coverage and 60 percent of the premium costs for a spouse and-or family.

Even with the addition of two new positions in the sheriff’s department and jail that are expected to be filled in June, and the addition of a new deputy in 2007, the county would save about $80,000 under a new insurance plan, Pratt said.

The $1.26 million Unorganized Territory budget covers the cost of road maintenance, dumps, fire protection, and cemeteries. The total budget will be determined by the state when education and welfare costs are added. The UT budget, which is borne solely by landowners in the UT, pays a large share of the county budget and an administrative fee.

The fact that all of the UTs in the county share the same mill rate prompted Greenville Town Manager John Simko to suggest a push for a “pay as you go” tax program.

Land in the UT that has no development should not be taxed the same as populated areas that require services, according to Simko.