First steps taken in 2017 county budget process

By Stuart Hedstrom
Staff Writer

DOVER-FOXCROFT — With the current budget year having passed the halfway point — the spending plan for Piscataquis County follows a calendar year — work on the 2017 finances is well underway.

“We have begun the budget preparation process,” Interim County Manager Tom Lizotte said during a July 19 county commissioners’ meeting. Letters, he explained, have been mailed to area towns and organizations seeking support for various programs and initiatives informing applicants there would be no increase in funding allocations made by the county next year.

Lizotte said he has met with the finance officers and all the department heads to see where they are halfway through 2016. By early September the first draft of the 2017 county budget will be ready and Lizotte will again meet with department heads.

“Then we will put together a draft for the commissioners to review sometime in late September,” he said. Lizotte said the budget advisory committee will start meeting in October.

The 2017 spending plan will likely not include any requests for sheriff’s department cruisers or other vehicles, but Lizotte said there may be a need for monies to go toward a dispatch equipment upgrade. He said another budget increase possibility is doubling the district attorney investigator position from 20 hours to full-time.

Lizotte said the commissioners have already OKed a cost of living adjustment to be offered to full-time, non-union employees as of Jan. 1, and a 2 percent increase in the salary scale is included in the union contract for next year.

“I feel like we’re in pretty good shape for this step of the budget process and most of this work will likely take place in September and October,” he said.

In other business, Lizotte said two public meetings were held the week before for unorganized territory (UT) residents on the Atkinson deorganization procedure with 22 attending a session in Greenville and a dozen present for a meeting in Milo. Registered voters in the UTs have been mailed an advisory referendum ballot on Atkinson’s desire to deorganize, with the results scheduled to be presented to the commissioners on Aug. 2. Data from the 650-plus ballots will help the Maine Legislature in its decision — possibly coming next year — to approve or deny any request to dissolve Atkinson.

Lizotte said comments from UT residents at the meetings were “about what we expected” as these citizens likely would not favor Atkinson’s deorganization since many of the community’s present municipal services would fall back on the county and as a result the taxes for all UT residents would increase.

“The roads are not in that bad a shape for a town that size,” Lizotte said as he and County Road Agent Carl Henderson looked at these travelways with Atkinson selectmen. “They are making a good faith effort to bring their roads up to speed.”

Lizotte said a salt/sand pile needs to be brought up to Department of Environmental Protection standards, and another to be settled matter in the deorganization process is the status of the McCorrison Road bridge over Alder Stream. The crossing is weight restricted and closed during the winter, and Lizotte said it would not be cost-effective to upgrade the bridge given how little traffic goes over it. The stretch of McCorrison Road does provide the quickest link between adjacent Orneville Township to Atkinson.

The commissioners also heard from Piscataquis County Emergency Management Agency (EMA) Director Tom Capraro. “The final number for applications for my assistant and the probate assistant is 36,” Capraro said about an EMA/probate clerk position split four days and one day between the two respective departments.

A committee narrowed the field to six finalists, who were scheduled to be interviewed later in the week. “I’d say at least a third of them are highly qualified, it was hard to come up with just six,” Capraro said. A candidate is scheduled to be brought forward at the Aug. 2 commissioners’ meeting.

The EMA director said he is working on an emergency action plan for the entire county complex, broken down into zones instead of having separate plans for the courthouse, Peaks House and sheriff’s office. “One of the things we are trying to make it is all hazard types,” Capraro said.

Lizotte said Capraro is working to make the emergency action plan more concise, so during an actual emergency county officials are not trying to find a specific page in the document when time is of the essence.

Capraro added that the EMA communications trailer would be displayed at the Piscataquis Amateur Radio Club’s annual Three Rivers Hamfest on Saturday, Aug. 6 from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Three Rivers Kiwanis Building in Milo for review.