HOULTON, Maine — A bleak economic picture was painted Monday evening by Houlton’s town manager and members of the council.
Holding its first budget workshop of the season, members of the council all agreed that the road ahead looked to be extremely bumpy.
“As we all know, a year ago, we sat here and had the same issues and discussion,” chairman Paul Cleary said. “Another budget season is upon us and it’s going to be a tough one. A lot of residents couldn’t handle another 1.75-mill increase.”
This past year, due to increases in both the school and municipal budget, the council was forced to pass along a 1.75-mill hike to taxpayers.
Cleary said his desire was to see the town come up with a budget that “spends wisely,” while figuring out what were “wants and needs.”
“We have a lot of work ahead of us,” he said.
“You are actually in a worse place today than you were a year ago, because of the unexpected reductions in revenue sharing,” Town Manager Eugene Conlogue said. “Plus, we will see additional costs coming down from the school district with the teacher retirement issue.”
A year ago, the council went into greater detail examining the municipal budget, targeting areas for potential cuts. Monday night, however, the conversation was more open-ended, with only a few councilors offering up any specific suggestions on areas the town could trim.
An additional workshop was set for Monday, Oct. 7 to review the 2014 municipal budget. Conlogue said he anticipates a much more in-depth discussion of budget issues at that meeting.
“We need at least two or three weeks to put something together to bring back to you,” Conlogue said.
By putting off serious budget talks until Oct. 7, the council will also have an opportunity to hear from its auditor on the first six months of 2013. The auditor is scheduled to appear at the Monday, Sept. 23, council meeting.
“The biggest question for you (the town manager), is ‘How do we maintain the services we have without increasing the budget?” Cleary asked.
“That will be the biggest challenge we will face,” Conlogue responded. “It will be a challenging year. We are in an era for municipal government where every year will be a challenge. There are no easy answers.”
Cleary suggested the town could look at increasing revenue in the ambulance department by increasing fees for contracted services. He also suggested increasing the fees to rent the Gentle Memorial Building, Just for Kids playground building or Millar Civic Center.
“Some people may disagree with this statement, but there is not any overspending by the town or our department heads,” Cleary said.
Councilor Sue Tortello said she felt the town has done a much better job at predicting revenue.
“We are two-thirds of the way into our year and we have 87 percent of what we projected for revenue already collected,” she said. “That shows me we were more realistic with what we thought we could raise this year. That’s a good thing.”
Conlogue said one of his goals is to get away from the trend of the town borrowing money for things to buy, which would reduce the overall debt.
Councilor John White said one area he would like to see brought under a microscope is the amount of overtime being paid in the ambulance department.
All of the town’s department heads, as well as several members of the public who are seeking election to the council attended the meeting.
Resident Stan Ginnish suggested the town should come up with a goal of seeing a budget that includes a 10 percent reduction across the board. One area in particular, Ginnish felt should be examined is the percentage the town pays for its employees’ health care.
Resident Mike Jenkins said he thought the town’s civic center was heading in the right direction over the course of the past year and cautioned targeting employees as a source for cuts.
Resident Priscilla Monroe asked if the town reached out to area businesses to provide more financial assistance and suggested a donation box could be placed at the rest area to help defray costs of the center.
