Southwest Harbor Could Join Bar Harbor in Double Digit Tax Rates For Properties
TREE CUTTING AT VETERAN’S PARK, SEAWALL ROAD CULVERT ISSUES
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by The Witham Family Hotels Charitable Fund.
SOUTHWEST HARBOR— If approved by the voters at the May town meeting, Southwest Harbor’s proposed budget (at its last select board meeting) would require the town to raise $11,987,082 a total increase of 17.3% or $1,763,622.
The town’s mill rate would be .01047 or 10.047. The budget that will eventually be passed or tweaked again by voters influences the mill rate. The mill rate then influences the tax bill.
However, things are still fluctuating and there might be a few more tweaks before the final budget is set before the voters on the warrant. And, voters can change that budget during town meeting.
“We’re not done yet,” Vice Chair Nathasha Johnson said near the end of the meeting. “We’re close.”
HOW MILL RATES WORK
“The mill rate is a dollar per thousand of value that we need to collect to fulfill the town budget,” Southwest Harbor Assessor Matt Caldwell said in September.
A mill rate is another name (used by towns and cities) for a tax rate. It is used to calculate property taxes so that they can be shown as a dollar amount for every $1,000 of assessed property value.
If a property owner owns that property in a town with a mill rate of 20, then they’d pay $20 in taxes for every $1,000 of the property's assessed value. For a mill rate of 10, they’d pay $10 for every $1,000, and so on.
Bar Harbor’s proposed budget also brings property owners up to a mill rate that is over 10.
Southwest Harbor’s warrant committee reviewed the budget with the select board, March 11, and approved the draft town meeting warrant for annual town meeting and election, May 5 and 6.
On March 25, the board will likely adopt the budget, recommend it to town meeting, and sign the town meeting warrant. Absentee ballots will be available April 7 and a public hearing will be set April 22.
The request for this year’s municipal budget was originally $6,624,696, a 20.2% increase. The education budget originally increased by 12.1% to $6,625,595. The Southwest Harbor portion of the county assessment also increased 20.4% to $513,965.
“Since the initial draft budget approved by the Select Board on January 28, 2025 and submitted to the Warrant Committee for review, a number of updates have been identified, some of which have been noted in the First Responders’ Package. Additionally, the final school proposed budget is $305,000 less than originally identified by our school contact. The budget request for Pemetic Elementary School is an increase of 10.6% and the High School is an increase of 15.9% from last year,” Town Manager Karen Reddersen wrote in a memo to select board members.
That county piece was higher than the town expected.
Redderson explained, “Conversely, the town initially budgeted $488,899 for our 2025 county tax allocation, based on a proposed increase of 14.55% published in the newspaper. The town has received the 2025 county tax bill which totals $513,965 and is higher than originally estimated by $25,066. The 2025 county tax bill increased a total of $87,165 from last year, which is a 20.4% increase.”
WARRANT COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS FOR BUDGET REDUCTIONS
Warrant Committee Secretary Anne Trotter said the warrant committee had a couple of concerns about a lack of housing and communicating out to the town about the justification for some of the expenditures, which came because of risk to some of the town’s infrastructure and equipment that is stored in the town’s shed.
There is potential instability in sources of revenue from state or federal budgets.
Johnson said that the committee’s work was thoughtful and select board member James Vallette asked Trotter to talk a bit about some of the reductions that the warrant committee had suggested.
She said a lot of the cuts weren’t cuts, but were more about flat funding and stabilizing.
“We want to be fiscally very conservative for a little while,” she said of the warrant committee recommendations. So the library and Harbor House did not get increases in those recommendations.
The recommendations will be on the town warrant articles.
The select board decided to restore the Mt. Desert Nursing Association’s request of $3,700. It also kept Downeast Health and Hospice’s full amount.
ORDINANCE AMENDMENTS
The board quickly reviewed changes to three town ordinances: the shellfish ordinance, 911-addressing ordinance, and subdivision ordinance. The state DMR looked at the town’s past ordinance and wasn’t explicit about the categories of junior licenses, which have always been free. They can dig freely up to the age of 15. This doesn’t change that. It just changes them as junior resident or junior non-resident. It’s a way of being explicit in a policy that has been in town since 2002.
No members of the public spoke about the proposed changes to the shellfish ordinance. It will now be placed on the ballot of May 6, 2025.
No members of the public spoke to the 911 ordinance, which had minor clerical tweaks as did the town’s subdivision ordinance. It will also go on the May 6 ballot.
On page 33 of the subdivision ordinance it also defined and clarified business days.
It now clarifies days as “calendar days and when the last day falls on weekend or holiday, it is the next business day.” That, too, was unanimously signed and placed on the May 6 ballot.
The questions read:
Question 1: Shall the Ordinance entitled “Shellfish Ordinance for the Town of Southwest Harbor, Maine” (last updated 11.05.2002) be amended to repeal the current “Shellfish Ordinance for the Town of Southwest Harbor, Maine.”
Question 2: Shall the Ordinance entitled “911 Addressing Ordinance for the Town of Southwest Harbor, Maine” (last updated 5.03.2022) be amended to repeal the current “911 Addressing Ordinance for the Town of Southwest Harbor, Maine.”
Question 3: Shall the Ordinance entitled “Subdivision Ordinance for the Town of Southwest Harbor, Maine” (last updated 11.03.2020) be amended to repeal the current “Subdivision Ordinance for the Town of Southwest Harbor, Maine.”
APPOINTMENTS TO THE SOUTHWEST HARBOR AND TREMONT EMS PLANNING COMMITTEE
The town appointed Jack Martel as the fire department representative, Jeff Prentice as the resident at large, and Kristen Hutchins as the ambulance service representative to the joint Southwest Harbor and Tremont EMS Planning Committee.
The bylaws of the committee also require a select board member to serve.
Those meetings will likely be on the second Thursday of the month. The fire department in Southwest meets on the first and third Thursdays for training.
“Is this something you’d like to do, Chapin?” Select Board Chair Carolyn Ball asked, referring to select board member Chapin McFarland.
He said he would. He was unanimously appointed.
OTHER TOWN MEETING BUSINESS
FIRST RESPONDERS’ PACKAGE BUDGET PROPOSAL
The warrant committee had endorsed the proposal, Reddersen said, which allocates the FY 2025 Tremont Police funds.
It impacts future budget discussions, Reddersen said, but the changes are for this year’s budget that the town is currently acting under.
“At the February 25, 2025 select board meeting, the town manager provided a draft budget proposal to allocate funds being collected from Tremont for the FY25 police service revenue totaling $332,775. Funds for FY26 Tremont police service have been incorporated into the FY26 draft budget as revenue, but FY25 funding from Tremont was not allocated in the FY25 Southwest Harbor budget due to the timing of the agreement,” Reddersen wrote. “Allocation of the funds as noted would reduce the need for FY26 CIP requests as noted, would reduce the paving reserve request, and would fund $145,000 of the ambulance service budget request. Chief Hall also supported the removal of the requested $13,200 appropriation for the PD recruitment reserve as the funds currently in the account should cover any recruitment costs expected in FY26. These changes to the FY26 budget request would result in a decrease the FY26 Tremont Police Service Revenue as noted, due to the decrease in CIP requests and recruitment reserve by the Police Department. The warrant committee has reviewed and voted unanimously to endorse the first responders’ package budget proposal as presented. I respectfully suggest passage of a motion to approve the allocations and reductions as presented in the First Responders’ Package.”
The select board voted in favor of approving “the allocations and reductions as presented in the First Responder’s Package.”
TREE CUTTING AT VETERAN’S PARK
According to a press release from tree wardens Eleanor Park and Ann Ratcliff, Monday, “One of the large Elm trees (Ulmus americana) located in the Veteran’s Park in SWH has tested positive for Dutch Elm disease and will need to be removed. The Tree Wardens noticed the tree showed signs of distress last summer, at the time of the annual tree inspection by Billy Guess from Eagle Arboriculture, who the Town uses for tree work. Tree removal was subsequently recommended for the safety of town citizens and visitors, because as the tree’s health declines, it could start to lose branches. Removal will also help reduce the spread of the fungoid disease. The Tree Wardens will assess new tree planting options once the tree is down. Target dates for removal are the week of March 17. Questions can be sent to the tree wardens via email to Eleanor Park at epark.swhcc@gmail.com, and/or Ann Ratcliff at concommawr@gmail.com. Thank you.”
SEAWALL ROAD ISSUES
A local resident and business owner, Charlotte Gill, walked Seawall Road Sunday morning and saw issues with the culvert at the end of the road facing the ocean has collapsed.
Town Clerk Jennifer LaHaye was notified by Gill, Monday morning.
“That is a state road, but I requested our Highway Department to investigate further to see what steps we might need to make or have the information to report to Maine DOT. It is still in the process of being addressed,” LaHaye said.
OTHER DOCUMENTS RELATED TO THE BUDGET
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Before too long, only the very rich will be able to live on MDI.... I suspect that will make everyone happy but the people that are forced out..... why not find another way to pay for things besides the hard working taxpayers of MDI.... add this to the cost of owning a home and soon the poop will hit the fan for many. But that's what we do... RAISE TAXES EVERY YEAR.
For further clarification on the Seawall Road culvert story I would like to add that the damage was the result of a snow plow, striking one of the retaining boulders at the top of the culvert. The culvert is in no way collapsed, it is simply that one of the large boulders at the top has been struck, pushing it over the edge to the shore below, and nudging one of the other boulders below it out of alignment. That is all. This is in no way reflection of the fine efforts and work that was done by the contractors last season. In fact, the road has never looked better since they did what they did for it and all of us. Amazing workmanship, which is still perfectly intact after this past winter, (and I suspect many more to come). If the culvert is tended to now, there will be no issue. If it is left to linger than it could affect the integrity of that section around the culvert and the covered itself. I just wanted to clarify how the current predicament came to be so all we’re aware that it is not a reflection on the fine work that was done and the fine people that did it.