MADAWASKA, Maine – Madawaska residents voted during a special town meeting on Thursday night to pay $1.15 million to cover a tax abatement to Twin Rivers Paper Co. and associated legal fees.
The money will come from a combination of funds from the town’s reserve account and undesignated fund balance.
About 50 residents were in attendance at the meeting. Town officials also had an attorney available via Zoom video call. The meeting lasted just under ten minutes. Residents approving the tax abatement item and another item to spend $20,000 on surveying and appraisal costs associated with accepting a 1 acre land donation without any comments or suggestions.
Moderator John Ezzy said he was told that there was a mistake in the wording of the tax abatement item, in which it incorrectly listed the balance of the town’s undesignated fund balance as $4.14 million when the total was actually $4.42 million. Residents voted in favor of accepting an amendment to reword the item to list the accurate number.
The decision comes after a disagreement between the mill and town that began roughly one year ago. An assessing mistake led to the mill’s tax bills getting lowered for three years. The mill’s property values in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 were, respectively, $65 million, $43.7 million, $43.7 million and $41.4 million.
But if the error had not occurred, those values would have been more consistent after 2020 and looked like $65 million, $68.2 million, $68.6 million, and $65.1 million for 2020-2023.
Once the town caught the error, it set the mill’s 2024 valuation to what they said it should have been in 2023, which is $65.2 million, a $23.7 million increase over the previous year’s valuation of $41.4 million.
Last year town assessor Lewis Cousins said the mistake had been made in the mill’s favor. Twin Rivers CEO Tyler Rajeski argued that the hike represented a drastic increase to the mill during a time when international tariffs already threatened to increase the mill’s annual expenses by millions of dollars. The mill has locations on both sides of the international border in Madawaska and Edmundston.
The town last year denied the abatement request and the mill responded by filing an appeal of the town’s decision with the state. Town officials agreed last month, according to the warrant for the special town meeting, that it would be in the town’s best interest to settle the request “as it not only resolves Tax Years 2024 and 2025 but provides certainty as to the assessment value of the property for the next three years.”
The $1.15 million will be paid with $800,000 for a town reserve account and $300,000 from the town’s undesignated fund balance.
