GREENVILLE – Any hope they had that state officials would find a solution for property tax relief is waning for Greenville officials.

Not pleased with the information coming from Augusta, town and school officials have scheduled a meeting next week with their legislative delegation to air their concerns and suggestions.

The meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 12, at the town office and will feature state Sen. Paul Davis, R-Sangerville, and Rep. Earl Richardson, R-Greenville.

“When legislators consider changing the constitution in order to adjust how property values are created, they are changing the rules of the game without any working knowledge of just what that will mean to various communities,” Town Manager John Simko said this week. “The state needs to work more closely with municipalities if it wants to craft meaningful and effective tax policy.”

“The people in Augusta must remember a message has been sent this past election – a very serious message,” Selectman Burt Whitman said Wednesday at a board meeting.

Former Selectman Eugene Murray, who was opposed to the proposed Palesky tax cap defeated in June, told selectmen on Wednesday that he would now consider such a tax cap if that is what it took for Augusta to get the message.

“Augusta just doesn’t want to do anything, and towns like Greenville just can’t do it,” Murray said in a telephone call Thursday.

He said Greenville could have its own tax cap for municipal government but he questioned the value of such a cap. The town still would be required to pay the ever-increasing county and state taxes, he said.

Murray also took umbrage with the fact the state is not funding schools at the 55 percent level that was approved by voters.

“This is democracy being stripped away from you,” he said Wednesday night. He said he was perplexed that the state could take a law passed by Maine residents and “whip it out the window.”

Simko said real property tax relief would come if the state beefed up the Homestead Act, allowed service center communities to tap into some of the revenue sharing received by surrounding unorganized territories, helped service center communities with infrastructure and initiated tax cap parity at all levels.