FORT FAIRFIELD, Maine — After several years of financial troubles, Fort Fairfield has passed a fiscal year budget that town officials say will eliminate its debt by cutting expenses by nearly $1 million.
Town councilors Wednesday unanimously approved a $7,420,355 fiscal year 2023-2024 budget, a decrease from the $7,743,565 budget for 2022-2023. A projected revenue of $7,428,938 means that the town will see an $8,583 surplus.
This budget year has not been an ordinary one for the central Aroostook town. In September, former Town Manager Dan Foster returned as an interim leader as Fort Fairfield faced $1,275,000 in short-term debt. Foster confirmed many residents’ fears when he said that town leaders had overspent in many departments, including on a new ambulance service, and vowed to help steer Fort Fairfield in a more stable direction.
His goal was to reduce the 2022-2023 expenses by $400,000, but the town actually slashed them by $850,000 by dramatically cutting expenses in departmental budgets, Foster said.
Stakes were high from the start. Fort Fairfield had gone from having $946,000 in the bank in June 2020 to only $199,000 two years later. A rising budget brought the town’s mill rate from 19.5 the previous year to 26.5 last fall, a 36 percent increase.
The new budget will decrease the mill rate by only two mills to 24.5. But a $1 million tax anticipation note will allow Fort Fairfield to pay off its debt by February 2024.
“We’ve paid $775,000 of our short-term debt. We only have $500,000 left to pay in this budget,” Foster said.
The most dramatic cuts were in public safety, parks and recreation and the library.
Foster and Fire and EMS Chief Mike Jalbert sold one of the town’s two new ambulances for $210,000 and a largely unused ladder truck for $400,000. That allowed them to fully pay off a loan that the town had taken out to pay for the ambulances.
“That eliminates $150,000 in debt payments from our budget each year,” Foster said.
The vehicle sales and relying more on part-time and on-call staff and volunteers has reduced the total fire and ambulance department budget to $878,324 from $1,416,428 in 2022.
Town leaders took a similar approach to other departments. Parks & Recreation has fallen from $296,158 to $169,023. The public library’s budget has been decreased from $135,269 to $58,111.
Reductions in those departments will save the town a combined $204,293. Both sets of cuts were met with controversy last year, especially after the town replaced former Library Director Jennifer Gaenzle with part-time staff.
The police department will see the only significant increase — from $557,011 to $567,880 — largely from the hiring of more full- and part-time officers. When Chief Matthew Cummings took over in 2021, he was the only officer and the department was at risk of closing. Now there are five part-time and three full-time officers.
The council’s unanimous vote came after a May public hearing in which several residents questioned how the town might reduce the mill rate further, even if it meant delaying the debt payments.
Resident Kevin Bouchard questioned Wednesday night why the Town Council was voting on the budget two weeks earlier than its regular meeting June 21.
“Our citizens and taxpayers have been consistently ignored in the past. Why dump salt in the wound by voting on the budget tonight?” Bouchard said.
Foster said that most residents he has talked with or seen speak at public meetings have supported the newly approved budget, which will take effect July 1. He said that conversations with the town and the resident budget committee went smoothly, so he saw no reason not to pass the budget sooner.
Town councilors said that they fully support the proposed budget and take comfort in the fact that Foster, department leaders and the budget advisory committee gave their approval.
“In the years I’ve served on the council, I can’t say I’ve ever seen so much time and effort go into the budget,” said Councilor Robert Kilcollins.
Four out of the five members of Town Council were present for the budget vote. Jim Ouellette had an excused absence, said Council Chairperson Keith Thibeau.