Commissioners make first decisions on 2017 budget

By Stuart Hedstrom
Staff Writer

DOVER-FOXCROFT — With the start of the next budget year just under six months away — the spending plan for Piscataquis County follows a calendar year — the commissioners took the first steps in the budgeting process during a July 5 meeting.

The commissioners first gave their approval to a cost of living adjustment to be be offered to full-time, non-union employees as of Jan. 1 — a 2 increase in the salary scale is included in the union contract for next year.

“This is kind of like the first action we do every year when we do the budget,” Interim County Manager Tom Lizotte said.

“This is the tradition we’ve done, treat everyone the same,” Commissioners Chair Fred Trask said, with adjustments being made for both union and non-union employees.

“I will pass that information along when we start the budget process,” Lizotte said, with the county budget committee convening in the fall.

Every year the county receives requests from area towns and organizations seekings financial support for various projects and initiatives. Lizotte said current and past recipients of funds usually receive a letter from the county by late July, which they need to reply to by September, and he asked the commissioners what would be their recommendations on monetary requests for 2017.

Lizotte was instructed to write that there would be no increase in funding allocations made by the county. “Hold the line will be the message,” he said.

Trask said any first-time requests brought forward should still be considered by the commissioners. “Anything new should be a judgement thing,” he said.

In other business, Lizotte had three items in his report. He said public meetings with the state’s unorganized territory (UT) fiscal administrator for UT residents on the proposed Atkinson deorganization are set for next week with the first scheduled for Tuesday, July 12 in Greenville and the other session taking place on Wednesday, July 13 at 6:30 p.m. at the Milo Town Hall.

Unorganized territory residents have been mailed on an advisory referendum ballot on Atkinson’s move to deorganize, with the results set to be presented to the commissioners on Aug. 2. Data from the 656 ballots will help the Maine Legislature in its decision, which could be made sometime next year, to approve or deny any request to dissolve made by the town of Atkinson.

On Tuesday, July 19 Atkinson will hold a special town meeting on the deorganization process at 6 p.m. at the town office.

Lizotte said he and County Road Agent Carl Henderson were set to travel some of Atkinson’s town roads with the selectmen to see improvements that have been made to the travelways by the community.

Lizotte said the county so far has received 16 applications for a custodial job and another 35 applications for an Emergency Management Agency/probate clerk position — split four days and one day between the two respective departments. He said when the job was first advertised earlier in the year there were only five applicants.

“It really does make a difference what time of year you advertise for these positions,” Lizotte said.

Last month the county made its decision on the long-term future of solid waste disposal. The commissioners opted for tonnage from the transfer stations in Lily Bay and Orneville to continue to go to the Penobscot Energy Recovery Company (PERC) in Orrington.

Lizotte said that Rod Carrr, a lobbyist of the law firm Doyle and Nelson of Augusta who has been working with PERC, would be traveling to the two transfer stations sometime in the future to get an idea of the locations and logistics. The county is contracted with PERC for the next two years and sometime later in the year the contract to continue post-2018 will be signed.

The county contracts with towns for some UT residents to drop off their trash, such as Blanchard and Elliotsville in Monson and Barnard in Dover-Foxcroft. For these arrangements the commissioners opted to remain with the municipal partners and the community’s post-2018 municipal solid waste decision. Both Dover-Foxcroft and Monson decided to go with the Municipal Review Committee (MRC) and its plans for a future facility in Hampden — operated by the Maryland-based Fiberight.

Lizotte said letters have been sent to the MRC with the signed municipal joinder agreements. Contracts needed to have been signed by June 30 in order for the county to receive the best incentives.