To the editor:
The tax commitment for this fiscal year did indeed increase from $473,000 to $737,000. It is highly inaccurate and morally irresponsible to blame the Selectmen for what the citizens themselves have decided upon at the official Town Meeting. The citizen’s decisions are what determines the results in the final tax numbers, and is their sole responsibility to approve or disapprove each budgetary item as presented on the warrant. This is why attendance at such meetings is very important.
The role of the Selectmen is to administer what the town citizens have authorized them to do, as per the approved articles listed on the town warrant. Selectmen carefully consider each expense to the town; i.e. fire/ambulance coverage, county tax, building maintenance, road repair and snow removal, general assistance, and other mandatory obligations. They then propose a budget which is reviewed, usually by an elected Budget Committee, which then makes revisions and further considerations. These recommendations are then presented to the town citizens at the annual meeting for their final consideration and approval.
Personal Property taxes are part of the regular municipal powers as described and authorized in the Maine Laws known as “Maine Revised Statutes as Amended”; Title 36, which has been part of Maine Law for many years. Section 708 “requires local assessors to locate and assess all taxable personal property.” This is not a matter of choice to enforce or not. In 1995 an exception for local businesses; referred to as the BETE/BETR programs, allows municipalities to choose how to handle taxing business properties. Previous opportunities to update the tax list were delayed until the Spring of 2012. Letters were sent out as a survey of personal properties to be assessed based on a list of known persons possessing taxable items. Citizens asked that the letters be sent to all citizens, and this was accomplished to date. Deadlines for compliance were included, that simple completion should be considered as a firm “ASAP.” Those who did not return the survey will expect another mailing.
All has been performed by the Selectmen in accordance with required regulations and accepted customary practice. Again, it was, is, and will always be, in a town meeting form of government, which has been common practice in New England towns for over 350 years, that the final say, and responsibility of the citizens of that town to authorize, by vote, the raising of taxes and to direct how those taxes are to be expended.
Raymond Hildebrand
On behalf of the Board
of Selectmen, New Sweden
