Warrant Committee Makes Its Recommendations to Lower 20% Tax Rate Hike

Suggests increased parking funds to pay for new school, multiple 7% cuts, no immediate funding for Higgins Pit solar array

Feb 28, 2024

BAR HARBOR—During a joint Tuesday night meeting, the Warrant Committee submitted three pages of recommendations to the Town Council as it creates the budget for the next fiscal year meant to alleviate a potential 20% tax rate increase for property owners.

None of those changes have been discussed or implemented by the Town Council, which will meet later in the month to formalize a budget to present to voters in June.

That budget will go to public hearing and the Warrant Committee will also meet again and make recommendations on items that it might differ with the Council about.

“There was a lot of thought and discussion put into these,” Warrant Committee Chair Seth Libby told the councilors Tuesday night.

Libby also explained that a lot of the budget work was about getting the burden away from the taxpayer and onto cruise ship fees or parking fees whenever possible. Often, the Warrant Committee presented general ideas for reductions for multiple items within a department, budget lines that are funded by taxpayers. Those were often recommended as 7% cuts.

“We had 55 motions last night,” Libby said of the 6.5 hour long meeting of the Warrant Committee the night before, as he sat in Council Chambers Monday with approximately 28 recommendations in front of him. “It was all I could do to get this together.”

Though many Warrant Committee members prepared themselves for a second long meeting in a row, the joint meeting with the Council Tuesday night lasted approximately 70 minutes.

The numbers were not finalized for the Warrant Committee’s recommendations, but there was approximately $465,00 in CIP reduction; general expense reductions were close to $70,000. Parking revenues increasing would be approximately $700,000, and there would be $75,000 in other revenues, Libby said. There were increases for cooperating agencies, recreation, and community band. He said to take those numbers with a grain of salt. They have not been triple checked by others.

“This was hard. Nobody likes to cut things. The 20% almost 21% increase . . .” Warrant Committee member Eben Salvatore said. Salvatore had suggested a majority of the changes. “Something had to be done.”

GENERAL GOVERNMENT RECOMMENDATIONS AND SOLAR ARRAY PROJECT

The recommendations included: increasing revenues to approximately $22,000; a 7% decrease in technology division CIP, municipal building CIP, and eradicating the line item for the Higgins Pit Solar Array project.

“Pay off the bond early and do the project when due diligence is complete,” Libby said of the suggestion of eradicating the bond and interest payment for the Higgins Pit project. The Council recently spoke of worries about the project’s downsizing and financial benefits. The project was supported by tax payers who approved a $4.35 million bond in 2022. It was also recently supported by the town’s Task Force on the Climate Emergency. The town has already made one payment on the bond, which was sold in August 2023.

The Warrant Committee also recommended fully funding the cooperating agencies requests except for Northern Light, which the committee recommended funding at $4,000.

CONNERS EMERSON CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT

The warrant committee recommended decreasing some funding on the school’s CIP expenses for a reduction of $5,942.30.

“The idea is to set the target, identify the line items,” Libby said, and then let the department heads determine exactly how and where to make the reductions. This approach was on multiple line items.

PARKING FUNDS AND SCHOOL DEBT

The Warrant Committee recommended increasing total gross parking revenue by $718,110 to $4,308,660; and using that increased parking fund to increase funding for the Conners Emerson debt service by $500,000.

That would be a 22% increase in parking. Salvatore said he believed it would be achievable in July and August.

“The logic was to attack the tax increase,” Salvatore said.

THE JESUP MEMORIAL LIBRARY AND PARKS AND RECREATION

The Warrant Committee recommended increasing funding by $490 for community events and Bar Harbor Band by $2,495. Council Vice Chair Gary Friedmann asked the specific reasoning for these increases. They were the requested amounts from those groups, the Warrant Committee explained.

The Warrant Committee recommended decreasing the requested library funding by $25,048 and changing the origin of the funds to a few sources, which includes: $224,272 from the general fund (tax payers), $50,000 from cruise ship funds, and $30,000 from parking funds or a combination that decreases the effect of the expense on taxpayers. The new number would be an increase of $144,272 over the 2024 original budget. Salvatore described it as a compromise situation where the funding increased, but isn’t as much of a property tax hit.

Another recommendation reduced general line items in the CIP parks expenses for a 7% reduction or $5,942.30.The Warrant Committee recommended reducing funding for park expenses by 7% or $18,516.29.

The logic was to reduce the items that are funded by the taxes rather than fees and there was resistance to micromanaging by making explicit cuts to one line item over another, Salvatore explained.

Friedmann said that the Glen Mary Park renovations was one of the line items cut, which he said seemed punitive.

Libby said that some of the items in the budget for Glen Mary currently are for chemicals to treat water that isn’t being used in a wading pool that’s been shut down. The Village Improvement Association and public works department have been creating a plan to redo the popular area.

The recommendations included decreasing funding for the highway division’s CIP expenses by 7%. It had a similar recommendation for the solid waste CIP expenses.

PUBLIC SAFETY

There were multiple recommendations to increase revenues. One was to increase the cost of public safety details and harbor revenues (multiple fees).

The recommendation also included decreasing police expenses by approximately $24,000; funding the Village Improvement Association via the cruise ship fees for $25,000; increasing funding for port security services by $10,590; decreasing ambulance CIP funding by $5,400; decreasing the fire department CIP by $19,864; decreasing the police department CIP by approximately $17,858 and dispatch by approximately $2,360.

It also recommended decreasing funding for the CIP line for the public safety building and also the harbor department CIP.

“The will of the people is not to have a 20% increase,” Warrant Committee member Jeff Young said. “It’s going to show the community members that voted for us that we are trying.”

Warrant Committee member Bailey Stillman was absent. Secretary Chris Smith and Warrant Committee member Ezra Sassaman attended via Zoom.