By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer
CARIBOU — One thing’s for certain — no one at the Caribou Nov. 13 public hearing on the 2013 budget stood up to advocate for higher taxes. For the most part, discussion centered around slimming the anticipated $9,493,854 budget for 2013 — and much of that discussion came from Caribou resident Paul Camping.
“Since there is no easy way to say this, I’m going to be direct and get to the point,” Camping said. “Please forgive my bluntness — the revised proposed municipal budget of 2013 adopted as presented by the city’s department heads has the nauseating stench of yet another tax increase. It is an exercise in protecting the status quo, when it should be a roadmap to reducing our runaway expenditures.”
“With this next budget, we must learn to live within our means,” he added. “We cannot be all things to all people; that means we must choose between those things we absolutely need and the things that we think would be nice to have.”
Camping presenting an approximately 25-minute speech to the council on how to reduce the budget and why — which included suggestions as to “ten easy ways to save a minimum of $576,000 and repair the library roof at no additional cost to the city.”
“Did you know that 26 percent of our residents are over 65 years of age, and a large number of them are trying to eke out an existence on their meager Social Security incomes?” Camping asked the council. “They’re only going to get a 1.7 percent raise this year; it looks like the council wants to raise our taxes by 5-10 percent,” he added. “This council and future councils must not turn a blind eye to our local recession or our demographics when making decisions on spending and taxation.”
The Nov. 13 public hearing on the proposed department operational expense and capital budgets was held in accordance with Caribou’s new budget process per the charter; budget season began in September and the next step in approving the budget comes on Monday, Dec. 10, when the council will vote to adopt the 2013 department expense and capital expense budgets.
About 15 minutes into his speech, Camping was politely halted by Caribou Mayor Kenneth Murchison, who was concerned that others in the audience wouldn’t have a turn to vocalize their concerns.
Before Murchison could state his suggestion that the entirety of Camping’s speech could be placed in the minutes of the public hearing so that they could be documented on the record, a handful of audience members offered up their five minutes to address the council. Satisfying both the mayor and those in attendance, Camping continued his speech with the understanding that a copy of his presentation would be entered into the minutes.
Camping encouraged the council to set the mil rate at 18.3 — down from the current 19.32 — and then work the budget to fit the reduced amount of appropriations that the lower mil rate produces.
“It’s the only way to guarantee tax relief,” Camping stated. “Doing it the other way, where you vote to appropriate a higher dollar amount, but then after the fact promise to continue working on reducing the budget just doesn’t work.”
Among the 10 ways to reduce the budget presented by Camping included:
• Establishing a hiring and wage freeze;
• Conducting a job audit to determine the right number of employees needed to provide essential services and eliminating non-essential positions or replace them with seasonal or part-time workers as needed;
• Cap the workforce at that minimum number and not exceed it unless expenses in other areas of the budget are cut to allow for a complete offset of that employees cost;
• Eliminate the three insurance options currently available for city employees and, instead, offer one low-cost, basic plan and require employees to contribute a minimum of one third the cost of that plan;
• Cease the practice of giving cash payments to employees who aren’t insured through the city’s plan;
• Sick days must be earned through punctuality and good attendance, capped at six days, and neither sick days nor vacation days can be carried over from year to year;
• The city should institute a program of 10 unpaid furlough days;
• Limit spending to only those departments or programs that are legitimate functions of city government, and a benefit to all citizens or produce a measurable amount of economic expansion or sizeable revenue stream for the city — all others should be eliminated;
• Decline to fund the Office of Community Development, the Caribou Trailer Park, the airport, the Nylander Museum, the Chamber of Commerce, and the employee contingency fund — which Camping explained would not be necessary if there’s a hiring freeze; and
• Cease the practice of giving annual step raises and longevity increases for city employees and instead, elect to make end-of-the-year cash payments to deserving employees.
“All employees in the same job classification would then be paid the same amount, and overtime payments would be reduced because they would be calculated on a lower base rate,” Camping said.
As the public hearing was an opportunity for citizens to speak their minds about the proposed 2013 expense budgets, council members only vocalized responses to direct questions and spent the brunt of the hearing silently listening to concerns.
At one point, however, Councilor Gary Aiken discussed the difficulty he’s faced with the new charter while trying to study Caribou’s ambulance department to find out, once and for all, if it’s profitable for the city.
Per the new charter, Caribou must determine its 2013 expense and capital expense budgets by Jan. 1; the 2013 estimated income budget report will not be available until on or before April 30 of that year.
Discussing the document with Aiken, Charter Committee member John Swanberg explained the reasoning for the charter’s rules.
“Like any business, you have to be able to make tough decisions on what you’re going to spend and then live by it .. [the charter] is trying to force this process before the year starts so everyone knows how they’re working and what they’re spending,” Swanburg said. “The difficult part is what the city council has to do in the next four weeks, and I understand it’s going to be a huge strain to be able to do that — to take everything that’s been said tonight and will be said tonight and take these number and come up with a reasonable budget for the city to have to fund.”
The approximately hour-long hearing also included sentiments that the city should wash their hands of any involvement maintaining Caribou’s snowmobile trails, that budgets like the Nylander Museum and the Caribou Area Chamber of Commerce that lacked department heads to perform analysis have their 2013 budgets capped at a three-year average (if not reduced by 5 percent) and it was requested that the council check on the possibility of freezing the property taxes for anyone over 65.
The next step in the budget process takes place on Monday, Dec. 10 when the council votes on the budgets.
