The Fort Fairfield Town Council approved a property tax rate at the same rate of last year’s, with the aim of generating a small surplus in the next budget.
At the recommendation of town manager Jim Risner, the council approved the town’s 2016 mill rate at $24.50 per $1,000 of property value at a Sept. 21 meeting. The tax rate, with the 2016-17 budget, would give the town about $49,000 “as a buffer,” Risner said. “If the numbers are right that might show up next year as a surplus.”
The council also approved Risner’s recommendations for allocating about $55,000 in surplus from the last year’s budget, including $30,000 for the Public Works Department reserve and equipment replacements and $15,000 for the Police Department’s new officer and vehicle costs.
Taxes will be due Feb. 1, 2017, with the penalty of 7 percent interest rate beginning March 1. The council discussed whether that interest rate is appropriate, after councillor John Herold suggested they consider lowering it, though ended up leaving it as is. Herold said a 7 percent interest rate seemed unfair for someone struggling to pay their taxes and other commitments. “It’s an incentive but it’s an obstacle at a certain point, too,” Herold said.
“It is a penalty for those who basically don’t want to pay,” Risner said. “My experience in the little over a year I’ve been here is that the tax collector will talk to anyone who’s having challenges paying for taxes and try to figure out a way to pay without going into penalty or foreclosure.”
The council also spent some time in a conversation about the education funding ballot initiative Maine voters will face this November, Question 2, which would establish a 3 percent surcharge on individual incomes above $200,000 to raise K-12 school revenue.
Lou Willey, a former kindergarten teacher and northern Maine representative of the Maine Education Association, spoke during the council meeting’s public comment and asked them to lend their support to the controversial initiative.
Willey said the tax is estimated to generate more than $150 million in additional state school funding, and that Fort Fairfield’s MSAD 20 would receive about $240,000 more from the state annually if the initiative passed.
“The money has been earmarked to go directly to classrooms – teachers, education technicians, materials. It should not ever go into hiring more administrators,” Willey said.
The point of the tax, Willey said, is to meet the Maine state government’s previous commitments to funding 55 percent of K-12 costs. “The closer we can get to 55 percent, it would hopefully alleviate some of the property taxes,” Willey said. She added that the surcharge would tax the top 2 percent of earners in Maine, and that the tax would apply only to the income above 200,000. “If they make $230,000, we’re just taxing that $30,000 at a 3 percent rate.”
None of the Fort Fairfield councilors opted to voice support for the measure and some questioned the initiative, pointing to other factors in school financing and the rise of property taxes.
“I agree to a point and disagree to a point,” said Herold.
Herold argued that it’s problematic to treat people earning more than $200,000 “as golden geese, which you’re already doing with relatively high income taxes.” On the other hand, “we need more tax money to spend more money on schools,” he said. “I would prefer to see economic development” with more revenue from more taxpayers.”
Several councilors also expressed worries about the initiative’s potential impact to small businesses and their owners, who Willey said wouldn’t be adversely affected. “If we own a business and make a profit, that would be personal income,” said David McCrea, the council chair.
In other Fort community news, the Tri-Community Landfill is continuing organizational merger talks with the Presque Isle Landfill and now in the phase of “crunching the numbers,” board member Stev Rogeski told the council. He said the TCL is also looking for a way to alleviate the loss of $24,000 in annual revenue from the aluminum recycling business it had with Pepsi-Co, which is consolidating aluminum recycling operations in Maine.
