PORTLAND – The Maine Supreme Judicial Court considered Wednesday whether county governments can force municipalities to pay for regional communication centers they don’t use.

Penobscot County last year appealed a lower court decision that sided with Bangor in a dispute over how regional emergency dispatching centers are funded.

Six counties, including Penobscot, fund their dispatch centers through county taxes rather than a fee for services.

Bangor and Lincoln are the only two municipalities in the county that operate their own dispatch facilities. Over the past three years, since the funding structure was changed from fee for service to a countywide tax, both communities have paid thousands of dollars for the Penobscot County Regional Communication Center.

Bangor has estimated that it had overpaid the county by as much as $300,000 and Lincoln estimated it had overpaid by about $90,000. If the lower court decision is overturned, the county might have to repay the two municipalities.

Central to arguments made Wednesday before the state supreme court in the Cumberland County Courthouse was what state law requires or does not require of county governments.

“If counties couldn’t do something with county taxes without a state statute to say they could do it, then counties could not do what they do,” Brent Singer, the Bangor attorney representing Penobscot County, told the court. “The county can use the county tax for what it needs unless the statute says it can’t.”

Singer said that if the county provided only those services outlined in the state law, it could pay to build and refurbish jails, but not fund their operation.

Bangor’s attorney John Hamer countered that counties may not require a municipality to participate in a regional dispatching center or, through a county tax, to pay for the service if it chooses not to use it.

In questioning the attorneys, Justice Donald G. Alexander compared regional dispatch to the policing services provided by a county sheriff’s office.

Sheriffs, he said, are required to serve an entire county, but communities may pay for additional services greater than those received by neighboring municipalities.

A majority of questions from the five justices who heard arguments in the case Wednesday focused on how state law defines contracts between counties and municipalities.

In addition to Alexander, Chief Justice Leigh I. Saufley, Justices Robert W. Clifford, Susan W. Calkins and Jon D. Levy attended the session. Justices Howard H. Dana Jr. and Paul L. Rudman did not attend.

Singer, attorney for Penobscot County, works for the Bangor law firm that bears Rudman’s name.

Friend-of-the-court briefs were filed by York and Cumberland counties in support of Penobscot County and by Lincoln in support of Bangor.

A decision is not expected in the case for several months.

What?s at stake

Bangor has estimated that it had overpaid the county by as much as $300,000 and Lincoln estimated it had overpaid by about $90,000.

If the lower court decision on the dispatch dispute is overturned, Penobscot County might have to repay the two municipalities.