LIMESTONE, Maine — Limestone Selectpeople voted on Wednesday to appoint Town Clerk and Tax Collector Vicki Page as treasurer and Interim Town Manager Stacey Mahan as deputy treasurer.
Mahan summarized the situation during the meeting, explaining that municipal officials “ran into a pickle” when trying to sign and notarize tax liens.
“Vicki is the deputy treasurer and also our notary,” Mahan said. “She has certain things to notarize that a treasurer has to sign.”
Page told the board that Richard Flewelling, who provides legal services with the Maine Municipal Association, had informed her that while a deputy treasurer can sign tax liens, it is “highly recommended that your tax collector is your treasurer.”
Selectboard Chairman Tom Albert said that, prior to Donna Bernier becoming Limestone’s town manager, the town manager was always deputy treasurer, never the treasurer.
Albert cited a municipal management and finances primer written by Richard Neal, and said former Town Manager Matthew Pineo, who was also the town treasurer during his brief, 10-week probationary period, had made decisions with credit cards that are prohibited by a treasurer.
“It says, ‘Although the treasurer is certainly an important and primary advisor to the municipal officers with regard to financial matters, the treasurer is prohibited from acting in an unauthorized or unilateral way, such as by choosing banking or lending institutions’,” Albert said, citing the text.
“That includes credit cards,” he added. “So our previous town manager should not have acted on behalf of obtaining credit cards. That’s why, in my opinion, the town manager being the deputy treasurer would be a better move.”
He clarified that, with Mahan as deputy treasurer, he could seek out credit cards for the town while he would not be able to as treasurer.
With this, Selectperson Melissa Devoe moved to appoint Page and Mahan.
