Where Have I Been County Budget

Wow Rusty commented to me at last nights selectman meeting that I had not been posting much - or anything in the last month. So long in fact I to look up my password for this blog. For that I am sorry.

My Tic Off of the day is the Increase in County Tax. The county passes its budget which is then billed to each town based on evaulation. There is no say or ability to reject - the town must pay the tax. There was a serious increase to our little town last year - we are almost paying $70,000 a year. Everyone is cutting, state, local, businesses. There are no raises being given by employers, we are lucky to have a job. So how can the three commissioners knowing this vote for another tax increase. The mill rate was 1.071 and is now scheduled to be 1.118. A few thoughts, Rusty with your back ground you might like this. Maine law enforcement uses State Police, Game Wardens, local police and county sheriff. With the way Maine is layout there is one to many layers of law enforcement and the easist to reduce is county sheriff patrol, letting the state police provide the coverage. Heck with the budget the way it is, the county already does sharing and has periods without coverage. This will strike a nerve and I am sure anyone with law enforcement background - especially at the county level will defend the county patrol, so I expect that. But folks times are hard and we need to really look deep into the budget. Second why not let the towns from which folks are arrested pay for the jail? if 51% of the arrests are from Bangor, let Bangor pay 51% of the jail budget. We all knew when county dispatch came on line that local control was going to be lost, but we never expected continuous budget increases