Imagine getting a raise at work, but pretending it never happened. Imagine that instead of seeing the raise in your take-home pay, your employer directed the extra money into a savings account. And that piggy bank could be cracked open just once a year, only after you first made a convincing case for doing so to your family. That’s basically the idea behind a proposal by Bangor City Councilor Richard Stone, passed by the council Monday night. It’s an idea that might be worth replicating in other towns and cities around the state.

Councilor Stone’s forced spending diet for the city has it directing 5 percent of property taxes generated by new construction to a reserve fund. That includes 5 percent of the property tax revenue from new big box stores, hotels and housing subdivisions, as well as from the increased value on a house onto which a garage or master bedroom suite is added. Councilor Stone argues the mandatory savings account is necessary in the post-LD 1 era; since that law was enacted, Maine municipalities are constrained from increasing property tax levies beyond a level equal to the average growth of “real income” in the state. Since LD 1, Councilor Stone said last week, the city has had the tendency to spend right up to its imposed spending cap; not a good way to manage finances, he said, especially if a receding economy is in the immediate future, along with increased costs related to spiking oil and gas prices.

This fiscal year, City Manager Edward Barrett and Finance Director Debbie Cyr said, the savings mechanism will result in $32,000 to $95,000 being deposited into the city’s new piggy bank; $80,000 is a likely total for 2008. While that’s not a lot of money compared with the city’s annual budget of $82 million, it’s a start. The new fund will earn interest income, and the presence of this “savings account” will help the city retain its bond rating, which in turn will keep the lid on the interest rate the city pays on borrowed funds.

Councilor Stone’s 5 percent solution isn’t as bold a move as, say, setting aside 50 percent of property tax revenue from new construction. But as is the case with starting a new diet or exercise regimen, small steps are best because they are more likely to be maintained.

In order to break open the piggy bank, five city councilors have to vote to do so, a hurdle Councilor Stone believes is substantial, given that councilors will have to justify those votes to constituents, who will watch them do so on TV and read about it in the newspaper.

With Americans for the first time in our history collectively owing more than we have saved, perhaps some household version of Councilor Stone’s “hide the new money” plan is in order.