$6.8M budget OK’d for County

During a public hearing in Caribou, commissioners adopted an approximately $6.8 million budget for Aroostook County and a more than $1.1 million budget for its unorganized territories.

“The budget process went very smoothly,” County Administrator Doug Beaulieu said Wednesday. “Everyone worked very hard to move this forward. Besides the commissioners, a number of organizations requested funding so they had representatives at the meeting, and I also saw some residents at the hearing as well.”

As they have in past years, commissioners requested a budget that reflected an increase of no more than 3 percent over last year in the amount of money that needs to be raised through taxes.

This year’s budget included an overall increase of approximately 1.3 percent over last year, according to Beaulieu.

Some changes will take place now that the budget is final. Commissioners approved a proposal to move an Aroostook County Sheriff’s Department deputy into a detective position and also opted to allocate funding to buy property adjacent to the Caribou Superior Court building. The offices of county administrators and commissioners are located on site, and Beaulieu said the adjacent property likely would be used for expanded parking.