Bucksport’s Town Council is considering reducing staff among a number of cost-cutting measures as it works through a challenging budget season.
Property taxes jumped for residents last year as the town used up around $8 million in savings set aside to cushion it from the loss of its major employer and taxpayer, the Verso paper mill that closed in 2014.
Officials for years used those funds to keep taxes from increasing on pace with expenses. The town is also facing other financial stressors, including rising property values, a need to rebuild fund balances and correction of budgeting practices that obscured the full extent of the town’s spending for at least a decade.
“Cutting three or four hundred thousand dollars from this budget is not going to be by buying less reams of paper and by buying less paper clips,” Town Manager Jacob Gran said Thursday at a council meeting. “It is going to be reducing services and cutting staff across the board.”
It will be months before the town’s next annual budget is finalized, but conversations in Bucksport are an example of the tough decisions Maine towns face to avoid sizable budget increases each year. Bucksport operates on a fiscal year that runs from July 1 to June 30.
The current net municipal budget totals $5,690,379; the next could rise anywhere from about zero to 16%, depending on choices the council makes.
Even if the next municipal budget stays flat — which would take serious cuts that councilors on Thursday appeared hesitant to make all in one year — Bucksport’s overall expenses are set to rise due to county and school budgets outside of town control. Higher property values increase its share of county taxes while decreasing state revenue sharing and public school funding.
But numerous residents have also said they don’t want services to be cut, especially public safety, according to multiple councilors. The town has its own police, fire and dispatch services.
Several councilors concluded Thursday they saw a need to restructure staffing amid other cuts, possibly over several years, to make lasting cost reductions. They asked Gran to develop options for reducing $250,000 in long-term expenses this year.
“We really need to think of structural cuts that will last in perpetuity,” Councilor Tracey Hair said, adding that she sees such changes as a multiyear process.
Councilors discussed reducing staff through layoffs, possibly in public works and at the transfer station, or a longer-term general hiring freeze to leave positions unfilled when employees retire. The town’s staff directory lists 57 employees, some of them part time.
Despite resident and councilor hesitation, deep reductions would also require changes to public safety, Gran said.
Layoffs would be an uncommon move for a Maine town, though there have been some within the last year in public school districts, the Knox County Jail, the state library and the University of Maine System. Numerous private companies and nonprofits in Maine have also laid off staff in recent months.
Overall, this year’s approach to budgeting is a shift away from a “cycle of underfunding essential services and masking the true cost of operations,” according to Gran, who started his job last year. He said that cycle magnified the town’s financial challenges.
For example, some program costs approved in the past were never formally added into budgets, and operating expenses were funded from different reserves and accounts instead of the operating budget.
Along with cutting staff, other possible budget reductions include pausing or limiting town funding for community and social agencies, skipping paving and reducing contributions to the Bucksport YMCA. Councilors may also consider changes to the transfer station and selling or leasing the town marina in the next budget cycle.
The potential pause on a proposed contribution of about $85,000 to community and social agencies — which include the local library, child care center, food pantry, senior center, homeless shelter and other organizations — met with pushback from residents at a workshop last week.
Councilors initially considered a hold on all funding for agencies rather than choosing between them, but decided to still ask agencies to present requests to the town on April 2.
Residents and officials have also discussed potential long-term consequences of severely cutting services or staff. But others have countered that sustained tax increases will begin putting residents out of their homes, particularly those on fixed incomes in a town with an aging population.
