Tax hikes aim to ease school budget woes
The proposed budget for the City of Eastport calls for an increase of $129,050 from local taxes for a 5.7% hike in the mill rate. The increase in the local budget is driven by higher costs for fuel, utilities and insurance, combined with a significant drop in the state education subsidy. The tax rate would increase from 19.9 mills to 21.04, which would increase the taxes on a $100,000 home from $1,990 to $2,104.
The city council will hold a public hearing on the budget on Monday, June 2, at 7 p.m. at the high school. Following the hearing, a school budget validation referendum will be conducted as part of the state primary election on Tuesday, June 10. The referendum procedure, a double-approval process for the school budget, is required under the new school reorganization law. If the school budget is not approved in the referendum, another budget meeting must be held, with the revised budget submitted again to voters. The process is repeated until a budget is passed. City Manager George Finch notes that the cost to the city of conducting any extra elections is about $4,800.
Under the budget proposal, the total budget would increase by $23,273 or 0.5%. The municipal operations portion of the budget, including administration, public works, police, fire department, cemetery and airport accounts, is increasing by $23,846 or 2.6%, and municipal programs, such as insurance, ambulance, hydrant rental, municipal solid waste and street lighting, are increasing by $65,879 or 11.4%.
The total education budget is down $63,326 or 1.9% to $3,221,824. With cuts in state funding, the local share from property taxes, though, will increase by $106,471 to $993,732.
Finch notes that without a great deal of effort to hold the line on taxes and offset over $350,000 in lost funding and close to $100,000 in increases in fuel, water and insurance, taxpayers would have been facing a mill rate increase of over 25% instead of 5.7%.
In remarks to city councillors, he commented, "While it would have been nice to not have any budget increase, I believe holding a total budget increase to $23,273 or half of 1% in these times is nothing less than spectacular. Due to the loss of revenue, particularly to the schools, even holding the tax increase to $129,050 or 5.7% is nothing short of a miracle."
No positions are being cut under the municipal portion of the budget. Finch comments, "There is little left we can do on the municipal side that would not drastically reduce services, as cutting the amount raised by taxes would require $250,000 in reductions to make a 5% reduction over last year. To do this would require cuts that make no sense unless the economy continues to collapse on rural American communities. If that is the case we will be revisiting the budget come January and making drastic cuts that would greatly affect how we live in our community."