At 25 years old, Ben Hunter is a Waldoboro anomaly: he’s not only young but a homeowner. What was a rental turned into an offer to buy, and Ben was able to manage it. Ben is a carpenter who, on leaving trade school, worked for Les Fossel at Restoration Resources, to preserve old homes. And this has been useful. The house has a long list of needs. However, the going is slow. Ben already works two jobs now – as a framer at Rockport Post & Beam and as a pizza-chef at Odd Alewives. Between the two, he breaks even after covering his living expenses, mortgage, building expenses and town taxes, all of which he understood but town taxes. They were the reason he decided to attend this year’s annual budget meetings between the Budget Committee and the Select Board. He was the single member of the public (other than me). In fact, this was the first year any members of the public attended these meetings. Yet, as Town Manager Julie Keizer likes to say, “It’s the most beautiful time of the year.” It’s also a grueling schedule with weekly (or twice-weekly) meetings that run through March and into April. They start at 6 and close at 9 with a five-minute break. The discussion is dense with line items scrutinized, whether for Police, EMS, Fire, or Public Works. Even the requests by the town’s institutions including the Food Pantry, Healthy Kids, and Midcoast Conservancy are carefully examined despite their miniscule percentage of a budget initially proposed at $8 million. Every hundred dollars matters. For Ben, a new taxpayer, the budget seemed dizzying. And he’d gone to town meetings like this before -- not in in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where he’d grown up, nor in Unity, Maine where he’d worked for a few years on his family’s generations-old dairy farm. Meeting after meeting, Ben showed up at meetings. His understanding of all the elements of managing Waldoboro grew. At the same time, the committee’s curiosity grew about Ben. At the final close, they suggested running for the committee. Ben handed in his petition last week.
I don’t like it when my taxes go up. If you look at my house, there’s a lot wrong with it. And it stinks because when I bought it last year, there was another building falling down on my property that I was being taxed on. Then I took it down. I did it myself, spending $3,000 for using a dumpster, plus the lost wages for taking the time off from work. And my taxes still went up. So, when I saw the notice in Facebook that they were having budget meetings, I decided to go. I missed the first, but I made it to the second when Police, EMS and Fire were making their presentations. It was so interesting I never missed another meeting.
I didn’t know that our ambulance serves several towns, even though when I’m driving, I’ve seen Waldoboro’s ambulances all over the place. I had no idea about the call volume, nor how many times we’ve provided mutual aid to other towns. I think it’s great that we’re helping the other villages in our community.
When Public Works got up over the next few meetings, I’d never thought about what we pay a lot for a subcontractor to haul our trash. I didn’t know that it was getting more and more expensive. So, I liked John Daigle’s idea that we buy the equipment to do it ourselves. And he had his eye on a used truck that his department could retrofit.
I also learned that Waldoboro is one of the few transfer stations in Maine that doesn’t do “pay as you throw” to encourage recycling. That made me feel that Waldoboro is getting behind, and dumping fees seem to be going up and up.
They also talked a long time about paving and maintaining our roads, and how weather doesn’t always cooperate and that makes it hard getting to everywhere. But what they do is very important. They make it so we can get to where we need to go.
On the other hand, the cost of some equipment is eye-popping, with a new fire truck close to $1 million and a new ambulance around $300,000. And then there are all the uncertainties. Planning ahead seems very difficult when we don’t know what the value of our dollars will be in a few years, or if we’re going to need to cover what our EMS instead of Medicare and Medicaid.
I like having good services in town. I think they are important. Not just for me, but for everyone. But I feel really torn. Services are very expensive. And I’m a young taxpayer working two jobs and repairing a run-down house. I feel really squeezed. That a 5%, then another 5%, then another 5% increase year after year, and that quickly becomes a lot of money.
The town has so many needs that it’s hard to find the middle ground. I think it requires a lot of cooperative thought to weigh what we should be spending money on, and what its affect is on the taxpayer.
The process took a long time. The adjective that comes to mind is resolved. In the beginning, the discussion was about the possible increases to the budget. And it was a lot of money! It was almost $9 million. Abden Simmons called it sticker shock.
In the meetings I watched give and take. There was a lot of considering about what the town needs. And how an increase in taxes will affect people. You could hear it in their voices how the committee, the Select Board and the departments really care for the people in town. It’s a difficult balance!
Towards the end, the department heads returned to present revised budgets. Each one found ways to cut expenses. They looked for solutions. They were trying to protect people from being priced out of their homes while still maintaining the level of services the town offers like EMS and Fire. I came away feeling that our town is very well served by its departments. In the end, the proposed town budget is the same as it was last year.
But taxes will go up anyway. A big increase is coming from the schools, and another from the County. And valuations are going up this year, too. I will still feel squeezed.
But I also feel niggled by the question that Valdemar Skov asked: “Do we save for future investments, or do we save our taxpayers now? Are we kicking the can down the road if we don’t put money away for a new ambulance in a few years?”
So, things are resolved for this year. But what about next year? Or in five?
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