By Kathy McCarty
Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Despite the recent passage of a bill to restore $40 million of state aid to municipalities that passed without Gov. Paul LePage’s signature last week, councilors continue to tread lightly on the topic, giving considerable thought Monday night to a resolution regarding state spending. They subsequently voted in support of sending the signed document to elected officials stating City Council “expects our state leaders to reduce the state budget in order to fully fund revenue sharing, with the reductions in state spending to be prioritized in areas that do not reduce critical spending in areas such as infrastructure investment, capital improvements, areas that are vital to our long-term economic conditions, education or other areas that directly benefit municipalities.”
In January, Councilor Mike Chasse — accompanied by Fire Chief Darrell White, Police Chief Matt Irwin and several members of both departments — went to Augusta to seek elected officials’ support of LD2721, the bill to restore revenue sharing funds to municipalities.
Chasse said “the use of revenue sharing funds to balance the state budget has been unfair in their impact to Maine citizens, Maine businesses and Maine communities. The decisions that have had to be made at the local level have been brutal, especially in Presque Isle.”
Since 2008, the cumulative impact on the tax rate has been 11.9 mils, costing the average business in Presque Isle $3,723.38. Chasse told those in Augusta that if the $40 million wasn’t restored, the “impact increases on those businesses by another 97 cents on the tax rate.”
Over the past six years, the actual reduction in revenue sharing to the city has been just over $1.3 million against the annual budget of $10,435,373 or 12.5 percent, according to Chasse. If the bill had not passed, Presque Isle was facing another $477,036 loss in revenue sharing, for a total budget impact of 17.1 percent.
“As I understand it, revenue sharing takes 5 percent of some of the state’s revenue to provide property tax relief. It is interesting to me that the state has not found a way to live within 95 percent of the revenues it receives but expects local communities to live with cuts that exceed 5 percent,” noted Chasse.
In drafting the resolution, City Manager Jim Bennett said the goal was to “suggest the state reduce its budget in order to meet its responsibilities to municipalities.”
“It leaves a range of options for the state to take a look at,” said Bennett.
The resolution also recognized the tax burden service center communities, like Presque Isle, face and that taxes in these communities are higher than neighboring municipalities due to the added services they provide. The document also acknowledged service center communities host about 55 percent more jobs in the communities than the total population of their residents.
Councilor Craig Green suggested crafting the information from the resolution into an editorial to inform citizens “that we are a service center community.”
“We’d provide them with the facts and figures on how we figure into the economic base the state has set up,” said Green.
Bennett said that was something he’d work on for future use in an In The City article for The Star-Herald.
