Council affirms 2015 budget adjustments
PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Councilors voted Monday to affirm adjustments to the 2015 municipal budget, as presented.
“The budget was adopted with the strategy to deal with adjustments with revenue sharing. It was adopted assuming the state budget would be adopted based on state law,” said Bennett. “At the time Council adopted the 2015 budget, we said we owed it to the taxpayers to give back 25 cents on taxes or $125,000.”
Bennett said that won’t happen, based on what’s happening with revenue sharing in Augusta.
He said by taking about $267,000 out of contingency and not giving 25 cents back (25 cents her $1,000 in valuation), that still leaves about $117,000 in contingency.
“That’s the highest amount we’ve had in contingency,” he said. “In the last four or five years, taxes have only gone up once, due to other increases related to county or school budgets.”
“Those are the adjustments we’d make if the state budget flat-funded (revenue sharing at) the current rate at 2 percent,” Bennett said.
He said that still puts “$650,000 in capital.”
“That takes care of all our other issues. That’s a $392,000 reduction in Revenue Sharing, decreases contingency by $267,000, and then the $125,000 … brings us back to the 2014 tax rate,” said the city manager.
“It’s clear we’re not getting the 5 percent (Revenue Sharing), so we might as well make the adjustment right now, based on the legislative plans out there,” said Bennett. “I’m comfortable we’ll be in the 2 percent range.”
Presque Isle’s current mil rate is set at about $24.42 per $1,000 in valuation, according to Pat Webb, the city’s finance director.
“We already have the school and county budgets, so unless there’s a major reduction in valuation — all major requests for pay raises have been denied. If the legislature goes less, we’ll deal with that when you commit the taxes later this year,” said Bennett.
Councilor Dick Engels moved to affirm the budget, as proposed, with a second from Councilor Mike Chasse, and councilors voting unanimously to approve the adjustments.
Councilors also gave final approval to affirm reduction in solid waste landfill tipping fees, which were discussed at length during the Council’s April 13 meeting and reported in the April 15 issue of The Star-Herald.