SPECIAL REPORT: Bar Harbor faces 17.6% tax rate increase in proposed FY25 budget

BAR HARBOR - After a punishing 8.6 percent increase last year, the new town manager Tuesday night will unveil his proposed budget for next year seeking a 17.6 percent increase in the tax rate to support a 16.7 percent increase in total municipal appropriations.

The bill for all the recent initiatives approved by voters - new school, stormwater upgrade, fiber upgrade, solar farm - will come into full focus for FY25, which starts July 1.

The town is facing $27.7 million in record municipal appropriations with capital spending going from $5.9 million to $8.6 million in one year. Five years ago, total appropriations were $16.5 million.

For the median priced home of $522,000, the new budget will exact a $800 increase in property tax, according to an estimate by the finance department.

For 350 elderly taxpayers, it will be 26.2 percent higher than their last tax bill because a state abatement program freezing their property tax increase lasted only one year after it was repealed last summer. How many seniors voted for the new $58 million school thinking they would not have to pay for it?

The town will hold a joint Town Council/Warrant Committee meeting Tuesday night to review the town manager’s proposed budget. You may join by Zoom, or watch it on Town Hall Streams.

The town manager did not post any budget details, but you may use this summary obtained by the QSJ as a guide:

The town manager budget is merely a composition of the total cost to run the town on matters already appropriated.

The task is now up to the council and the warrant committee to wrangle down a bloated budget with all sorts of personal favorites.

For instance, the QSJ reported in December of how the council chair was actually on the study committee of the library seeking a 200 percent plus increase from taxpayers. It remains to be seen whether she can be on both sides of that request.

A very wise business mentor once told me to treat budgets “like it’s your own money.”

That would require hard questions which will not come from the council easily.

Consider:

FIRE AND EMS

The town spent $1.7 million for fire and EMS response in FY24. In 2013, it was $677,032.

In 2012, there were 10 full-time employees and 15 part-time employees who responded to 440 fire calls and 1,166 ambulance runs, according to the annual town report.

In 2022, 18 full-time personnel and 13 part-timers responded to 710 fire calls and 1,255 EMS calls.

TRASH

The cost to dispose its garbage exceeded $1 million for the first time this fiscal year.

Of the 115 towns in the regional disposal district, Bar Harbor is the third highest producer, next to Bangor and Brewer. But it leads all towns with the highest per capita output of 1,839 pounds a year.

How it that possible?

Because it isn’t the year-round residents generating most of the trash.

Call it the garbage subsidy - another example of how the tourism trade rides on the backs of local taxpayers, as hotels, vacation rentals and restaurants get a free ride.

On Dec. 20, 2022 Finance Director Sarah Gilbert first warned of the spike in cost to manage municipal waste during the tourism season. By then it had become obvious that the 2021 record tourist season was no fluke and that 2022 produced similar volume.

Councilors have been talking about impact fees for years. Will they just keep talking?

SOLAR

The town has already spent $1,171,708 on the Higgins Pit solar project, an inconvenient fact as the council debates whether to pull the plug.

Vendor Sun Dog Solar received a $1 million deposit, and it is unknown whether the town can claw any of that back if it cancels the project for which voters approved a $4.5 million bond in 2019. The first $32,000 payment of that bond started this year.

Would it be prudent to have Sun Dog use the $1 million to install as many panels as possible on town-owned property and bank the rest for other infrastructure projects?

COUNTY SUBSIDY

Why hasn’t anyone taken the county to task for its assessment which has now exceeded $1 million? Why hasn’t anyone questioned county commissioner Paul Paradis of Bar Harbor (former council chair) on why he and others gave themselves, the county administrator and two staffers a whopping 30.11 percent increase last year in salary and benefits. See Page 24 of the county budget.

The new town manager got a 32 percent raise to take the Bar Harbor job. Why not task him to come up with cost cuts, instead of a politically influenced council and warrant committee trying to do it all by themselves?

How about a deferred compensation program for high salaried, non-union employees?

Citizen watchdog Charles Sidman took the council to task in December for approving $282,000 for a back-up generator when you could buy a similar rig from Home Depot for a fraction of the cost. The town manager did not question the request from his public works director and fire chief.

The FY25 budget may not be the end of the prodigious spending by this council, which is eyeing $30 million to build a marina. At its meeting Christmas week it gave full-throated endorsement of a marina master plan, containing the wishes of every water-borne constituency the last five years, from kayakers to the Nova Scotia ferry. But how many residents will be direct beneficiaries?