LIMESTONE, Maine — Limestone residents elected town officials and approved budgets via referendum during voting on Election Day, July 14.
Limestone would normally hold a formal town meeting to approve the budget after its election, but the COVID-19 pandemic and state restrictions led to officials including town meeting warrant items on the ballot in order to ensure the safety of citizens and fall within state social distancing guidelines.
Fred Pelletier and Jesse Philbrick were each elected to three-year terms on the Board of Selectpeople with 240 and 214 votes, respectively. Robbie Caldwell was elected for a three-year term on the Limestone Water & Sewer District Board of Trustees with 187 votes, and Shaun Guerrette was elected for a three-year term on the school committee with a total of 163 votes.
Overall, 320 ballots were cast in the election.
The town’s overall budget is $2,972,756, or a $417,013 increase over last year’s budget of $2,555,743. Increases on the municipal side were primarily due to the closure of Crown Ambulance, which previously served Limestone and a number of municipalities in The County. In order to keep ambulance services within their community, Limestone officials had to sign a contract with the city of Caribou, which brought their annual fee from $25,350 to $216,600 — a $191,250 increase. The Loring Development Authority has agreed to cover half of these costs.
With the ambulance separated from the rest of the municipal operations budget, overall expenses are at $1,722,101 — a $2,160 reduction from last year’s total.
County taxes increased by $9,883 this year and the education budget increased by $218,040, but school reserve money was used to lower the total local appropriations for this budget.
This year, a total of $150,000 was taken from the school reserve account in order to reduce the town’s local and additional local appropriation to $937,540.13. Last year, $250,000 was taken from the school’s reserve account in order to reduce the total local appropriation to $719,500.30.
Limestone Town Manager George “Bud” Finch, who began working for the town on May 18, well into their annual budget process, noted that the pandemic posed challenges with this year’s budget and said he looks forward to working with the town on future budgets.
