PATTEN, Maine — Property taxes are on the rise in the community of Patten thanks to increases in both the municipal and educational budgets.
Town Manager Raymond Foss said Wednesday that he was finalizing the mailing list for property tax bills and that residents could expect to see those bills arrive in the mail later in the week.
Opening that bill, however, may come as a bit of a shock for some residents, as the town’s mill rate, at 30.5 mills, is up considerably over last year’s rate of 27.25. Foss said the average tax bill will likely feature a $325 increase from the previous year. For a home valued at $100,000, the property tax bill would be $3,050, he said.
Foss explained the reason for the large hike in the mill rate was two-fold. First, the municipal budget featured an increase over the previous year.
At Patten’s town meeting March 20, only 37 registered voters participated. There are 670 registered voters in the community, according to Foss. Therefore, roughly only 5.5 percent of registered voters cast ballots on the town budget that totaled $988,802, which was $95,897 higher than the previous year’s spending plan.
The highway capital improvements account represented the single largest increase in the budget at that time when it was approved at $252,525, which was an increase of $102,725.
Then on Tuesday, July 10, residents gathered for a special town meeting at which taxpayers were asked to pony up an additional $41,800 for the town’s highway capital improvements account so that additional work could be done on roads.
“In 2016, we approved a capital improvement plan that included repairs for all of our roads over a seven-year period,” Foss said. “We then decided to extend that work to include more rebuilding of roads. Thanks to the vote at the special town meeting, we can now work on six miles of roads instead of just four miles as originally planned. This will hold a lot of roads together for many years to come.”
Starting in August, Lane Construction will begin working on a number of town roads in Patten, including Happy Corner, Frenchville, Waters, Barleyville and Lovejoy roads, along with Station, Pleasant and Scribner streets.
The second reason for the tax increase involves the town’s share of the newly-formed RSU 89 being substantially higher than originally expected.
The first RSU 89 budget passed in June with a 64 percent overall approval rating from voters of the member communities of Stacyville, Patten, Sherman and Mount Chase. The $4,673,395 spending plan represents an increase of $358,331 for taxpayers in those municipalities over what they had previously spent as part of the consolidated RSU 50 with Southern Aroostook.
In Patten, the school budget passed with 173 voters in favor and 49 opposed.
