Commissioners formally adopt county budgets

DOVER-FOXCROFT — Next year’s county budget and the Unorganized Territory (UT) budget for the 2017-18 fiscal year were both finalized and signed by the Piscataquis County Commissioners during a Dec. 20 meeting.
“We have been through a process, we have had budget committee meetings where they worked through the budget and we have had a public hearing,” Commissioners Chair Fred Trask said, as county officials also reviewed the two spending plans at a meeting earlier in the month.
Interim County Manager Tom Lizotte said the adjusted 2017-18 UT budget will be $1,541,088. “It’s a slight increase from the year before just because we have more paving from the year before,” he said.
The increase totals $69,215 or 4.7 percent, which is due largely in part from the county continuing with its 10-year paving plan including $180,000 budgeted for 1.76 miles of roads in Elliottsville. The commissioners had approved an LD1 property tax growth factor override for 2017-18 as the UT finances will be more than the 1.2 percent threshold.
Earlier in the month the commissioners had a proposed 2017 county budget of $4,038,985, just over $20,760 or 0.52 percent more than in 2016. The corresponding tax commitment for the 17 towns and two plantations in Piscataquis County was just over $2,287,000, a decrease of $52,171 or 2.23 percent.
Lizotte said a slight change has come from the district attorney’s office being awarded a STOP Violence Against Women grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to fund a full-time investigator for the department next year. The county would contribute $31,264 to go along with the $63,475 grant and another approximately $25,000 that had been earmarked for a part-time investigator. County officials have said the change in position from part- to full-time will not have an impact on the total net budget.
In other business, the commissioners approved a bid from Maine Generator & Solar Power of Milo for $4,340 — the second bid totaled a little more than $5,000 — for a generator at the Charleston Hill communications tower.
“Up on Charleston Hill by the old domes we have a small building with two repeaters,” Piscataquis County Sheriff’s Office Dispatch Sgt. Gary Grant said. He said the repeaters are currently on a battery backup that only lasts for six hours and “after a long outage we will lose the ability to use that at all.”
Grant said a crew from the correctional facility will be able to build a lean-to for the generator, with the county only having to cover the cost of the structural materials. “It’s a very good site, if you get up there you can see all the way north,” he said.
Piscataquis County Emergency Management Agency (EMA) Director Tom Capraro said the agency is able to get about 50 percent of generator costs reimbursed. “I have enough funds where I can cover that for them,” he said about the communications tower generator.
Grant said the lean-to would not be constructed during the winter so the department can wait several months for Capraro to apply for and receive the reimbursement.
“We will secure the bid now,” the EMA director said. “I have got to do my paperwork to get the money back and that usually takes two months or so.”
Capraro said emergency communications were needed the previous Friday as the region experienced a four-hour power outage from mid-morning through the early afternoon caused by trees falling on a main Central Maine Power transmission line in a remote location of the county.
He said calls began to come in and warming centers were set up in Dover-Foxcroft, Guilford and Greenville. Capraro said emergency plans call for American Red Cross shelters to open for extended outages, with one being located at Greenville High School as this community has five senior apartment complexes with about 100 combined residents.
“Everything worked out great as the director of (the Maine EMA) said it was a great drill,” Capraro said. He said communications with Central Maine Power went well — the company provided frequent updates as crews fixed the problem — and his agency coordinated well with towns across the county.
In his report, Lizotte said Greenville Police Chief Jeff Pomerleau has been confirmed to serve on a task force to examine all aspects of law enforcement in Piscataquis County. “So I think we’re ready to go,” Lizotte said, as other committee members representing the various towns and police departments have already agreed to take part.
The task force was developed from a recommendation of the budget advisory committee. The 13-member group will have no predetermined outcomes about what the future of law enforcement services in the region could look like.

Observer photo/Stuart Hedstrom
A DOZEN YEARS SERVING THE COUNTY — Piscataquis County Commissioners Chair Fred Trask slices into a congratulatory cake following his final meeting on Dec. 20 at the county complex in Dover-Foxcroft. Trask, a resident of Lake View Plantation and the owner of Trask Insurance in Milo, has been a commissioner for 12 years. Trask opted to not seek re-election when his term expires at the end of the year.