I love municipal government. We are the most accessible of all forms of government. That’s why I’ve worked in it for 25 years. But I’ve never had a position like this, being the tax collector and being at the front counter. That’s why I am never at my desk to answer the phone; and I always feel bad about that.
But I love the work because you’re constantly learning something new. And just when you think you have it down, forget about it! A new mandate comes down from the state, or something new comes up that you have to learn. It’s always different, and I enjoy the challenges. I’ve worked now for three different towns, the first being Bristol, then West Bath, and now Waldoboro, the largest of them.
Sometimes I think people believe that the higher you rise in municipal government, the more you know. All I can say is that I’m astounded at how much knowledge all of us here know in order to serve the community.
But I don’t get to make my own rules, and that means for virtually anything. I’m an agent for the state. I’m told what to do and when to do it. The state who tells things like the timing of notices, or how you register your vehicle; or what you need to register it; or why you need to pay your taxes by a specific date.
It’s a lot of paperwork for a paperless society. I need to be very organized and stay on top of things. Just to register a vehicle – there are a lot of nuances, like whether it’s a private sale or they got it from a dealer or if all the paperwork is there – you need to know a lot.
And it’s hard for the people coming in because they don’t always know what paperwork they need to bring or what they need to know. But without that, we can’t help them. At this time of year, a lot of people are giving gifts of hunting licenses. But if you don’t have the last name and birthday of the person to whom you’re gifting, we’re not going to be able to find that person, no matter what I do. I hate sending people away, but sometimes I have to.
The state also legislates how we tax. And there are many, many laws that mandate how we do that. On the other hand, all towns are required to provide services. At a minimum, it’s paying for town hall staff. Waldoboro, however, has police, EMS, and fire departments as well as a department of public works. Because tax revenues are what pays for these services, we have to figure out how much we’re required to tax based on the budget for the services we provide.
It would be nice if the state could jump in and say: “Oh, we’re going to make it easier on the property taxpayers, we’re going to pay for road improvement.” Or tell us: “We’re going to support for your fire department.” But that’s not how it works. We have to come up with our own budget to pay for these services. Everything is driven by our budget.
This town does particularly well at that. I’m not in attendance, but I listen to the meetings. I hear what they go through to reach a budget, or everything the Select Board members, the town manager, the budget committee and department heads go through in order to come up with a budget that will serve the public while, at the same time, keeping taxes as low as possible. To me, the creativity is in the way that people work together here, and how employees, our officials, and our committees come up with solutions. They mix it up, and they talk about it. It works out.
With the budget, in particular, there’s nothing like local government officials working to decide how to move things around in a budget so that people still get the services they are expecting. I think Waldoboro does amazingly well at this. The municipal budget did not go up this past year. But the budgets for education and the county did, two things which we cannot control. So, people were not happy with their tax bills.
It’s a little emotional for me. I don’t like seeing how hard it’s getting for people to pay their property taxes. They mostly figure it out, but I know it’s not easy.
Sometimes they cannot pay their taxes, and so we give them a lien. That gives them an additional eighteen months to pay it in full. I file the liens at the registry. If they are delinquent, then I try to collect the taxes, which means sending out the required notices and keeping track of timing.
If they fail, their property becomes tax-acquired property for the town – but not that the Board is selling property out from under them — the Select Board generally lets people stay in their homes if it’s a homestead.
This is why I think they should be looking harder at this in Augusta. From where I stand, I don’t think the legislature and officials realize the burden that’s being placed on property taxpayers. If they did, I’d like to think that resources would be allocated differently.
I don’t know the ins and outs of how it works. But I think it involves education. I wish they’d look for better ways of financing education.
They tell towns they need to figure out how to reduce taxes. We already do that. And we do it well. We’re the scrappiest level of government, and we figure it out.
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