Bar Harbor Resident Pleas For Lower Budget
If nothing changes, property owners face 20.2% tax rate increase
BAR HARBOR—The plea came near the end of a 4.5-hour marathon Town Council meeting Tuesday night.
“I don’t know how it’s going to come down, but it’s got to come down,” said Carol Chappell, who chairs one of the Warrant Committee’s subcommittees, speaking as a private resident before the town councilors. “You might have to take some people out of departments. The people in this town cannot afford it.”
Chappell said that many of Bar Harbor’s older community have lost the state subsidy, which helps them to pay taxes. That is no longer funded. Increases in water and wastewater rates and the value of in-town homes has made that situation untenable for many who have fixed incomes or lower incomes and own homes.
“It’s got to come down for the in-town people,” Chappell said. “Sometimes in my life I had to eat simpler food because I couldn’t afford the more expensive food. We’re in that situation now, folks. The people in this town cannot afford it.”
“Costs are up everywhere,” Council Chair Val Peacock said, calling the budget a perfect storm of impacts. “It’s hard to find places where you can cut significantly enough to find those reductions.”
A large amount of the budget is made up of the new $55 million school construction bond approved by voters last year. That can’t be tweaked, but the amount of bond used can be lessened by fundraising. The town also can’t adjust its county budget commitment.
“My frustration is . . . It all adds up. It’s real money. My frustration is where do you find it?” Councilor Earl Brechlin asked Tuesday night.
Brechlin said that someone frustrated by the budget could cut a million out of the budget at the June town meeting, and then there’s a mess trying to find ways to cut that money in July. And there is a responsibility to try to keep the costs down for property owners.
“How do we explain to people?” he asked. “Do we just go, ‘Oh, we tried.’”
Town Manager James Smith talked about councilors adding the full library or YMCA requests to the budgetary expense at the expenses of the roads or town services. The thought, he said that “I’m going to squeeze more and do less,” is hard. “That’s a very difficult position for me to be in.”
Reducing the budget is either going to mean a reduction of services or loss of services or a balance, Smith said.
HOPES FOR FEES
The town has two main ways to reduce property tax bills that come from a rising budget: reduce the budget line items or find money in places that are not property tax bills. Those places haven’t yet been found and presented to councilors.
“Please, please give us a fee schedule,” Councilor Kyle Shank implored Smith during the February 20 meeting.
Smith said Tuesday night that he’s already met with staff and department heads to try to see about fees for different town services: what can be increased, what can be added, what can be tweaked. Some fees, like cruise ship fees can’t just go into the town’s general fund and be used for anything—say building a new school, but have to be applied to things that support cruise ship visitation—harbor equipment, potentially a marina, public safety items.
“It may not be a fix all and it may not come in time for this budget,” Smith said.
Anna Durand who owns a lodging business in Bar Harbor spoke in support of the library’s full funding and also in support of new town fees. “I am begging you, begging you, to get the local options tax done. I am begging you to get the lodging tax done.” She is also, she said, begging for a pay-for-throw.
HOW THE BUDGET PROCESS WORKS
The Warrant Committee’s five subcommittees meet and vote on formal recommendations. They’ll bring those recommendations to the full Warrant Committee on Monday night. At that meeting, the Warrant Committee will make its own recommendations to the Town Council, which has been tweaking the budget as it goes, adding in the full requested funding for the YMCA ($150,000) and Jesup Memorial Library ($330,000) and cooperating agencies. Brechlin was the sole vote against those reinstatements to the Y and Jesup.
“They’re asking for a lot of money in a year that we just don’t have it,” Brechlin said.
Councilor Matthew Hochman said that the Y and library are not funded in Bar Harbor at the level as they are in other towns. There hasn’t recently been data presented about Y funding in other towns, but the Jesup submitted a report that both Councilors Shank and Chair Val Peacock were involved with. Shank provided data. Peacock was on the library’s committee.
“It’s a tone deaf ask,” Brechlin said of the library during a Council budget workshop February 15.
Hochman said, “I completely disagree.”
“Taxes are not a voluntary contribution,” Brechlin said. “If you don’t pay that, you lose your house, you lose your property. We’re taking that away from people.”
Peacock, echoing much of what was said at the Warrant Committee subcommittee that makes recommendations about this part of the budget, said of the library, “I see that the same as police services,” Peacock said. It represents what Bar Harbor is as a community and what it values. Fully funding the cooperating agencies’s requests and the asks by the Jesup and Y increased the proposed tax rate by approximately 1%, bringing the total increase to 20.2%.
THE IMPACT OF THE PROPOSED BUDGET
The net impact for the currently proposed budget is around an $914 increase for a median home owner with a home valued at approximately $525,000. However, the median income for a Bar Harbor resident was closer to $67,000 in 2022. Home assessments and valuations, particularly in downtown Bar Harbor have increased dramatically despite the income of who owns the home. A person with a home now valued at $750,000 (above the median) could have an income well below the median.
If the budget goes through without changes, the total annual tax for a property owner with a home valued at $525,000 is $5,448.
On February 27, the Council holds a joint meeting with the Warrant Committee. On Monday, March 4, is the Council’s tentative adoption and there will be a public hearing scheduled. Also, in March, the Warrant Committee meets again to make its voted recommendations for the town warrant, which voters see at the June town meeting. It is at this town meeting that voters can approve, not approve, and/or tweak the budget.
WARRANT SUBCOMMITTEES AND THEIR ROLES AND DISCUSSIONS THESE PAST WEEKS
Heading into the full Warrant Committee meeting on Monday, February 26, most of the subcommittees that met are currently not bringing recommendations to cut costs.
At these meetings, the subcommittee moves to make a recommendation to the full Warrant Committee. Those are brought to the Monday meeting. The Warrant Committee then accepts or rejects those recommendations.
GENERAL GOVERNMENT SUBCOMMITTEE
Chair Carol Chappell, Seth Libby, Ezra Sassaman. Katherine St. Germain
The committee focused on the planning department, finance director’s department, and the municipal building.
The members discussed health insurance plans and fee schedules pertaining to short-term rentals and other lodging, as well as impact fees. They also discussed funds going into streetscape accounts, which are close to $1 million. And when to look at what is in CIP accounts and their uses.
The committee unanimously moved to recommend all articles under its purview forward to the full Warrant Committee.
Ezra Sassaman said that he had a potential conflict of interest for the items pertaining to the Town Council stipend because he lives with Councilor Maya Caines. The subcommittee voted 2-2 that he did or did not. Libby and St. Germain voted that he did not have a conflict. Sassaman and Chappell voted that he did.
PUBLIC SAFETY SUBCOMMITTEE
Chair Julie Berberian, Kevin DesVeaux, Shaun Farrar, Eben Salvatore, Chris Smith
Having met twice already, the Public Safety Subcommittee meets again Friday, February 23.
Discussion in the committee has focused on potentially asking for the fire and police departments to find percentage cuts in their budgets. During one meeting, James Smith said that the departments are having a hard time maintaining dispatch staff.
Members also discussed increasing fees for yachts and the cruise ship fund revenue expectations, which tie into public safety support. They also discussed whether or not the harbor department needs a three-quarter ton truck and whether or not to fund LifeFlight at higher than requested levels.
THE PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE SUBCOMMITTEE
Chair Meagan Kelly, Alison Sasner, Bailey Stillman
This committee deals with recommendations for multiple parts of the municipal budget including the funding for the YMCA and Jesup Memorial Library and other cooperative agencies, which the three members recommended funding at full level. Durand spoke at their meeting. They had no reductions to recommend to the full Warrant Committee.
EDUCATION SUBCOMMITTEE
Bob Chaplin, Shaun Farrar, Louise Lopez, Jeff Young
Certain expenses within the Conners Emerson School budget are fixed. Those include contracted salaries and benefits for teachers and staff. Ed tech salaries are increasing by 11% and teachers’ salaries (3-8) have an increase of 7.18%. Other elements have a bit more flexibility, but are still hard to predict. Webster hoped to reduce the amount of substitutes used this upcoming budget year. COVID-19, she said, increased the need for substitutes and therefore the budget went up in the past to pay them. The school also reimburses staff members for classes they take to further their skills and education, to advance to master’s degrees, or receive certifications.
The town’s probable sewer and water increases also increase the school budget since the school is on town water and sewer. The budget increases this by 27.27% to $28,000. Electric costs have a similar increase of 27.42% to $79,000.
On February 21, the subcommittee voted to recommend no changes to the school’s general budget or capital improvement budget.
ARE BUDGET PIECES LIKE THE HIGH SCHOOL’S AND AOS’S OUT OF VOTERS’ CONTROL?
During the Bar Harbor Town Council’s first budget workshop on Thursday, February 15, one of the councilors made the statement that it was hard to see such a large increase from the MDI High School budget when that budget was out of their hands.
That’s not quite accurate. It’s out of their hands as a body, but not out of the voters’ hands.
There are two separate budgets that voters (including councilors and select board members) can have a hand in approving, or not approving, before those budgets become part of the property tax impact.
HIGH SCHOOL BUDGET
At its February 12 meeting, the Mount Desert Island High School Board approved a $14,490,156 budget. The budget as presented marks a 7.1% ($960,973) increase over last year with the overall budget increasing from $13,529,183 to $14,490,156. The assessment to towns’ portion of the budget climbed from $10,540,101 to $11,369,030 for an increase of 7.86% or $828,929.
Each town’s assessment for the high school budget is shown below.
Within the high school budget is the MDI High School Board of Trustees budget. This budget has not been approved by the board yet and is currently funded at $799,791 which is a 3.81% increase over last year.
At the last Board of Trustees meeting on January 22, High School Principal Matt Haney said that the trustees have stuck with a 3% budget increase for the last 10-15 years and was wondering if board members thought that they might want to change that to 4 or 5% in upcoming budget cycles.
The Board of Trustees has not voted on its budget yet but approval of the 2024/25 budget is on the agenda for their meeting set to be held Feb 26.
VOTER OPPORTUNITY
According to Haney, there is one step left in the high school budget approval process.
Haney said, “There's a final step in the budget adoption process, which is a public vote on April 3 at the high school. Voters from the four MDI towns are able to participate in the process. Yes, the budget could be voted down at this meeting, which is why it's important for as many voters as possible to come to have their voices heard in the process.”
This meeting is at 6 p.m. and will take place in the high school theater. This is the opportunity for voters to approve, ask for any budgetary changes, or vote down the high school budget entirely. This process is only open to voters of the four members of the high school district, Bar Harbor, Mount Desert, Southwest Harbor, and Tremont.
AOS BUDGET
The MDIRSS AOS 91 budget is set at $2,764,056 which is a 9.19% ($232,600) increase over last year. The voters’ opportunity to weigh in on this budget prior to town meetings has passed for this year as the budget was approved by a warrant-style public vote on Wednesday, January 24, at the high school library.
This vote must occur every year and voters from every town in the AOS 91 system can vote. This includes Bar Harbor, Cranberry Isles, Frenchboro, Mount Desert, Southwest Harbor, Swans Island, and Trenton.
The town assessed portion of the AOS budget is $2,390,238 and each town’s share is below.
MDI High School: $662,335
Bar Harbor: $538,282
Mount Desert: $281,809
Southwest Harbor: $244,521
Tremont: $242,131
Swan’s Island: $75,532
Cranberry Isles: $43,502
Frenchboro: $22,229
Trenton: $279,897
UPCOMING TIMES WHEN VOTERS CAN STILL GET INVOLVED
High School Board of Trustees will vote on its budget Monday, February 26, at 5:30 p.m. in the high school library. The meeting is open to the public.
On April 3 at 6 p.m., voters from Bar Harbor, Mount Desert, Southwest Harbor, and Tremont can go to the MDI High School Theater and approve or not approve of the high school’s budget. The meeting is open to the public.
On Monday, February 26, 6:30 p.m., the Warrant Committee will meet at the Bar Harbor Municipal Building on Cottage Street in Council Chambers on the third floor. The meeting is open to the public.
On Tuesday, February 27, 6:30 p.m. the Warrant Committee and Town Council will meet at the Bar Harbor Municipal Building on Cottage Street in Council Chambers on the third floor. The meeting is open to the public.
The Council tentatively adopts the budget and schedules a public hearing, March 4, at 6:30 p.m. The meeting is open to the public.
On March 19, there is a public hearing and the Council does its final budget adoption. The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. The meeting is open to the public.
Any additional Warrant Committee meetings can be attended by the public.
The annual town meeting is June 4.
Disclosure: My husband and Bar Harbor Story writer is on the town’s Warrant Committee. We are not the same person and often have very different opinions on many things.
UPDATE: This post was updated on February 23 to include a second chart by Kyle Shank and also to clarify language. We had a double quote in there. It has also been updated to add more clarity around the AOS and High School budget process.
This article brought to mind an old quote about democracy that went something like this: "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship."
More and more it seems like Americans are developing champaign taste on a beer budget. How many times in the past year have I heard one group or another classify something as a "must have" that only 10 years ago would have been described as a lavish luxury? Visa and Mastercard may have convinced us that a "buy now, pay later" strategy is workable but sadly it is not.
A $50,000,000 new elementary school may seem like a real bargain for a father with 3 children who is paying $3,000 a year in property taxes…let's see a private elementary school tuition in Maine averages $14,400 a year x 3 children = $43,200 x 8 years = $345,600! And for him it is indeed a bargain. For the 67 year old retired couple living on social security that hasn't seen a realistic cost of living increase in years, as Ms. Chappell rightly points out, a 20% tax increase might well put them out of their home and on the street.
Many years ago I had a friend who would become interested in something (new kayak, bicycle, etc). Within a week or two the desire to make the purchase would begin to intensify and he'd admit to "wanting" the item. Fast forward a few weeks and he "had to have it!" Last I heard from him he'd gone bankrupt.
Thank you for this comprehensive information. Voters should ask if these increases are one-offs or will these agencies have increases like this every year.