FARMINGTON – Commissioners approved the 2017-18 county budget Tuesday morning, following the recommendations of the Budget Committee with the exception of adding stipends for all non-union employees.
Those stipends relate to negotiations with non-union employees to resolve a large amount of accrued personal time off, representing a potentially significant liability for the county. The total cost of the stipends, which will also result in slight impacts to Federal Insurance Contributions Act and other personnel-related lines, will be calculated by county officials and presented to the Budget Committee at their Wednesday evening meeting. The committee could choose to overturn the commissioners’ changes with a two-thirds vote.
The budget recommended by the committee included $6.21 million in expenditures, approximately $24,000 less than the one originally proposed by commissioners. Two alterations made at the last budget committee meeting included adding $5,000 to Children’s Task Force, from the originally-discussed $0, and removing $10,000 from the communications reserve account.
Commissioners approved every department budget as recommended by the budget committee, with the exception of the additional stipends. Those stipends consist of $250 for part-time, non-union employees, $500 for full-time employees with fewer than five years experience with the county and $750 for full-time employees with more than five years experience with the county. That stipend would apply to both elected and appointed county employees.
In exchange, non-union employees agreed to limit the amount of accrued time the county would have to purchase if the individual should leave the county’s employ. Previously, county employees could accrue up to 1,200 hours of earned time/personal time off, with Franklin County obliged to purchase those hours at 60 percent of the employee’s wage upon their retirement or resignation. Due to the longstanding nature of many individuals’ employment, this represented hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential costs for the county.
The agreement would cap the amount of earned time/PTO the county would need to pay off at 480 hours. The compensation rate would drop to 30 percent for employees with more than five years of experience and maintain the 60 percent rate for employees with more than 10 years of experience.
Commissioner Charles Webster of Farmington thanked the non-union employees for working with the county and said that the stipend was a fair compromise.
“They accumulated [the earned time/PTO] and it’s fair that we pay for it,” Webster said.
Commissioner Terry Brann of Wilton noted that while he typically believed that elected officials should not receive stipends, said that the large amount of work undertaken by department heads in relation to the compromise should be reflected in the agreement.
In addition to troubling the commissioners, the potential cost of the accrued earned time/PTO concerned the county’s auditors. The agreement only pertains directly to non-union employees; negotiations with the Fraternal Order of Police, representing Franklin County Sheriff’s Office personnel, begin next month.
The vote to implement the stipends was unanimous.
Commissioners opted not to alter any other aspect of the budget committee’s recommendations. While Webster did note that he generally supported reserve accounts for the communications department and others, he did not want to vote against the committee’s cut to the communications reserve account. Stanley Wheeler, the director of Franklin County Communications, said that he felt strongly that the department should eventually have a reserve account. He said that a recent lightning strike on the Oxford County Communications Center had resulted in approximately $300,000 of damage.
Commissioners did not address the committee’s elimination of $10,000 for a part-time clerk position at the District Attorney’s Office. District Attorney Andrew Robinson said that he understood the decision and would adapt by occasionally closing off public access to the office when the staff needed to catch up on paperwork or other tasks. This is similar to the court system, which has periodic administrative periods during which there is no public access.
Addressing the at-times controversial issue of Programs & Grants, which were cut from $209,000 in requests down to $61,200, the commissioners opted to follow the budget committee’s lead and leave a $5,000 appropriation for Children’s Task Force intact. Zero dollars was approved for Adult Education, Greater Franklin Development Council, Sexual Assault Prevention & Response Services and Androscoggin Home Care & Hospice.
Commissioner Clyde Barker of Strong made a motion to fund Western Maine Transportation at the requested $10,500, not the committee’s recommended $7,500. He said that the agency intended to run a route to Rangeley, something he felt was necessary due to the town’s lack of a drug store. Barker said the route was supported by senior groups in the region.
Brann countered that Rangeley should pay for the route instead of the county. “I support the reduction of all of these programs,” Brann said. Many agencies received federal and state funding, Brann said, equating their request for county funding as “triple-dipping.”
“I think you’re robbing my people in District 3,” Barker said, going on to say that while District 1 and 2 residents may not need Western Maine Transportation, District 3 residents in the northern part of the county did.
Barker also voted against $20,000 for Western Maine Community Action, $0 for GFDC, $0 for Androscoggin Home Care & Hospice, and SeniorsPlus, where he conversely moved to recommend $0 rather than the committee’s recommendation of $10,000. Webster and Brann said that they could support $0 for SeniorsPlus in principle, but opted to follow the budget committee’s $20,000 reduction rather than removing all funding.
The budget committee will convene Wednesday evening at 6 p.m. to finalize the budget; the committee can overturn the commissioners’ changes, namely the stipends, with a two-thirds vote. Commissioners intend to meet Thursday at 8:30 a.m. to set the tax commitment.
I think we should thank our commissioners for their hard work, I do not agree with the budget but I do respect these people for doing a very hard task and doing it well,
I also find it sad that a story about a tree gets several responses and yet this very valid article about the spending of our money get almost nothing in response what does this say about us as a community
To address communications reserve and a lightning strike fyi county has roughly 1.6 million in undesignated funds already
In regards to a lightening strike, does the communication center not have adequate insurance? Communication devices are very vulnerable to these strikes and it is not a matter of if, simply a matter of when.
For this very reason there are surge protection devices designed for this. Obviously, these do not protect against a direct strike by lightening on the building as nothing does. However, it is not that expensive to install protectors for any port that has an outside copper connection, including of course the AC Power. There are low cost devices which are highly effective for this. I used to work for a company that designed and made such devices and my jobs was to test them to make sure they did what we said they say they do as well as making sure they are safe. I would bet that a company like Expranet or some one else could handle the purchase and install of these and make the comms centers safe from the damage caused by lightening strikes