With some Presque Isle residents anxious to get their property taxes over with, the city council went ahead and set the mill rate even though voters in the school district have yet to finalize a budget.
Presque Isle property taxes will be due Monday, Oct. 17, at a rate of $25.68 per $1,000 of property value, an annual increase of about 0.24 percent.
The city council approved the 2016 tax rate at a meeting Monday, Sept. 19, as Presque Isle and the other four communities in School Administrative District 1 were still waiting to vote a referendum on a third school budget that was originally set for Sept. 13 and is now scheduled for Sept. 29.
With much lower tax assessments in this version of the school district budget, several councillors suggested that it was likely to pass and that folks in Presque Isle were ready to pay their tax bills, as they normally do this time of year. The school district’s delays have also been holding up the city government’s normal financial schedule, and the neighboring towns of Castle Hill, Chapman and Mapleton already went ahead with setting taxes in August, based on an earlier SAD1 budget.
Presque Isle councillors Emily Smith and Randy Smith both voted against setting the mill rate now. Emily Smith, the council chair, suggested waiting until the budget is finalized. “I think the voters should vote on it. “
The $25.68 mill rate will raise taxes by $22 for a $100,000-valued home, although that’s four percent less than the $26.71 rate that was expected when Presque Isle’s 2016 budget was adopted last December.
At the same time, the pressure on taxes from the school district and city government shows no signs of abating. Councillors have also started preliminary discussions with city department leaders on their capital budget spending requests, which cover everything from new police cars and a fire truck to repairs at The Forum and downtown sidewalk renovations.
The council also approved a contract with FB Environmental to study non-point source pollution sources in the Kennedy Brook watershed. Draining parts of residential and downtown Presque Isle, some farmland and Mantle Lake before flowing into the Presque Isle Stream, the Kennedy Brook watershed is currently considered to be an “urban impaired stream” by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, which suggested the water study and will be helping pay for it.
