FARMINGTON – The county’s budget advisory board will formally make their recommendations for the next fiscal year at a meeting set for 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 22.
This comes after a public hearing on Thursday in which six of 11 agency representatives pleaded for their funding requests to be fully restored after the committee of nine selectmen indicated earlier the cuts may be coming.
In addition, the committee was asked to restore funding for county IT, and cell phone services totaling nearly 11,000. Communications director Stan Wheeler also asked that $9,000 of $17,551 be restored for the dispatch center’s new consoles’ computer cards, which are in need of replacement.
As it stands now, the estimated $6 million county budget as recommended by the county commissioners is roughly $163,000 more than the budget panel has recommended in preliminary voting.
The agencies facing a complete cut in county funding as indicated in preliminary discussions by the budget panel are Adult Education, which requested $22,557; Tri-County Mental Health, which requested $20,000; SeniorsPlus, which requested $34,000; and SAPRAS or Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Services, which requested $10,000.
Those agencies or organizations pegged for partial funding cuts by the budget committee are Western Maine Community Action which asked for $40,000 and the budget committee is offering $26,000; Greater Franklin Development Corporation’s request of $60,000 has been reduced by commissioners to $42,000-level with last year and is matched by tax increment financing through the Kibby wind power project- and the committee’s reduction is at $30,000.
Those receiving their full requests so far by both commissioners and the budget committee are the Franklin County Children’s Task Force at $10,000; Western Maine Transportation at $10,500; Androscoggin Home Care & Hospice at $20,130; Franklin County Soil & Water at $25,000 and the Franklin County Firemen’s Association at $3,700. These requests were level with the current budget’s funding amounts.
Budget committee member Ray Gaudette of Phillips, asked some of the agency representatives for their operating expense totals, and each total percentage dedicated to administrative costs during the hearing as they explained their work and asked for funding restoration.
Many noted state and federal funding matches were only possible through raising local funding from the county. Adult Education director Ray Therrian and Paul Brown noted their program impacts the entire county. Last year the program provided the ability for 34 residents to earn high school diplomas, including two in jail.
No one spoke in defense of Tri-County Mental Health. Western Maine Community Action’s representative Bill Crandall noted the many programs it provides including weatherization and other repairs to the homes of those in need, with a particular focus on the needs of seniors. Last year over 100 homes received safety repairs, such as railings and ramps, Crandall said.
SAPRA’s executive director, Marty McIntire, asked that the request of $10,000 be restored and noted that Franklin County has the highest incidence of sexual abuse of children of any other county in the state. In order to combat that, the agency is providing advocates in the schools and student education about abuse issues. Assistant District Attorney Claire Andrews and Barbara Jewett, the Spruce Mountain High School Jobs for Maine Graduates advisor, agreed with McIntire, noting the county’s funding is essential towards providing advocates in the schools.
SeniorsPlus is also facing a no funding cut from the county if the committee votes on Wednesday as they have at an earlier meeting. Betsy Sawyer-Manter and Connie Jones said their agency opened a new local office recently with full-time personnel offering a variety of services to the county’s seniors. Their agency, too, relies on a local funding match that is required for state and federal funding.
“We are perplexed after having done so much,” Sawyer-Manter said of the expanded services the agency provides in Franklin County. Board member Irv Faunce said there are 5,000 seniors in Franklin County which makes up 17 percent of the county’s population. Of the seniors in the county, 10 percent are poor and another 33 percent are considered low income “and way too many live alone,” he said. “A request of $34,000 to 0 is appalling; very discouraging, very distressing.”
In response to a question of how the county budget committee determines which agencies to cut and by how much, New Sharon Selectman Travis Pond said the attempt was to keep the county under its LD 1 tax cap.
“The best way is to cut things that wouldn’t necessary to government,” Pond said.
Committee member, Selectman Stephan Bunker of Farmington, countered that by saying LD 1 “is not a hard and fast limit. We don’t have to stay within that to set our budget. We look at what’s most needed.”
