BANGOR – City councilors put the final touches Monday night on a $44.7 million municipal budget plan for the coming fiscal year that reflects nearly double the funding for fuel costs.

During a budget workshop at City Hall, Finance Director Deborah Cyr pointed out that the city’s total cost for fuel is projected to jump from this year’s $1,760,931 to a whopping $3,304,408 – an increase of 87.65 percent.

In a background memo dated April 14 – the day council members received their copies of the proposed budget – City Manger Edward Barrett noted the cost of keeping city buildings warm and keeping the city’s fleet of vehicles running initially was projected to increase by $450,000 from this year, when the city was able to lock in at a relatively low cost per gallon.

Fuel costs, however, have continued to skyrocket.

Given that situation, the councilors expect to vote to override the state’s limit on the city’s maximum allowable tax levy when they adopt the municipal budget on June 23. The proposed override, they say, is for a total of $484,791, all of which will go toward increased fuel costs.

A draft of the council order authorizing the override states that the city consumes nearly 100,000 gallons of heating fuel, 84,000 gallons of unleaded gasoline – more than half of which is used in police vehicles, and more than 164,000 gallons of diesel fuel, about 40 percent of which is to operate the BAT Community Connector and 52 percent of which is used by vehicles in its public works operations.

The councilors approved a proposed $41.5 million school budget during a special meeting on June 2. Voters will decide that budget today during the first school budget validation referendum in recent history.

Despite the hike in the city’s cost for fuel for heating city buildings and running its fleet of vehicles, belt-tightening has yielded a municipal budget that maintains the level of services that Bangor residents have come to expect, according to City Councilor Richard Stone, who chairs the council’s finance committee.

In an effort to offset some of the increased operating costs, the city has eliminated a vacant position at its recycling facility and a vacant post at Bass Park. Two vacant posts in the engineering department have become a single combined job.

In addition, the councilors opted not to fund requests for three new police officers, a deputy fire chief and public education officer for the fire department, evening hours and an outer Hammond Street route for the BAT Community Connector public bus system, and new front doors for City Hall, to name a few. They also have reduced funding for most of the so-called “outside” groups that depend on city subsidies for part or all of their funding.

If both the municipal and school budgets are approved as is, $44.7 million will have to be raised from Bangor taxpayers.

The proposed tax levy translates to a tax rate of $19.05 per $1,000 in property valuation, an increase of 25 cents per $1,000 in property valuation, or 1.3 percent more than this year, Cyr said.

Despite the increase in the tax rate, however, most single-family homeowners will not see higher tax bills, according to Barrett, Finance Director Deborah Cyr and Assessor Benjamin Birch.

That is because for the first time in several years, most of the city’s residential properties will see decreased or flat property valuations.

According to a breakdown prepared by Barrett, 52.7 percent of the city’s 6,319 homeowners will see decreases in their property’s assessed values. Another 7.7 percent will stay at the same level, while 39.6 percent will see increased assessed values.

dgagnon@bangordailynews.net

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