MEXICO – The Budget Committee and selectmen will make competing recommendations at next month’s town meeting for economic development and chamber of commerce funding for the coming year.
When the final 2005-2006 municipal budget recommendations were wrapped up Thursday night, one point of disagreement between the selectmen and Budget Committee stood out – funding for economic development, particularly that for the River Valley Growth Council.
Selectmen recommended $12,000 for the Growth Council, while the Budget Committee voted 6-4 to recommend $6,000.
“We felt that was one area we could cut without hurting anyone’s job, that it was not essential to keeping the town running,” Marjorie Richard, a member of both the Budget Committee and the newly recharged Mexico Taxpayers Association, said Sunday.
This is also the first year in the past four that MeadWestvaco paper company will not match the amount raised by the three core towns – Mexico, Rumford and Dixfield – and the lesser amounts raised by the area’s smaller towns.
In 2000-2001, the mill owners provided about $25,000, then $50,000 during each of the following three years. That funding ends on June 30 with the change in ownership of the mill.
Rosie Bradley, assistant executive director of the Growth Council, said she is pursuing funding from the soon-to-be new owners, Cerberus LLC.
Richard said the Budget Committee used the same thinking when it voted not to provide funding to either the River Valley Chamber of Commerce and the town’s economic development account.
Selectmen are recommending $2,000 each.
Richard said she believed the Growth Council was supposed to be self-supporting after the end of the MeadWestvaco match. Bradley said that although that was the original belief, she has learned that most areas with growth councils must continue to seek funding from member towns.
In fact, in order for the Growth Council to qualify for certain federal economic development funding, it must show it has support from the municipalities it serves.
Bradley said on Sunday that a major fund-raising campaign would likely begin later in the year.
Selectmen Chairman Arthur Bordeau said the his board supported giving the Growth Council $12,000 because economic development is important to all towns.
“We can’t stop growing and take away their financing. Supporting them supports ourselves,” he said Sunday afternoon.
The Budget Committee’s final recommendation of $1.9 million fell about $13,000 below what selectmen will suggest at the June 13 town meeting. In addition to cutting economic development funding, the budget panel also pared $1,000 from the general government account and $2,000 from several social service agency requests.
Both bottom-line figures are about 10 percent higher than last year’s adopted budget of $1,817,658.
Both figures are also below the amount Town Manager John Madigan requested of $2,015,813, a figure that he estimated would adequately fund all existing municipal services for the fiscal year that begins July 1.
He said past budgets were often under-budgeted, which has resulted in the town’s surplus being completely depleted. A surplus is needed to provide cash flow until property taxes are paid each year, avoiding the need for short-term borrowing, as well as to help cover unexpected or emergency needs.
Madigan came on board in January, replacing 10-year town manager veteran Joseph Derouche, who is now the Growth Council’s executive director and currently on unpaid medical leave.
Even if all articles are passed at town meeting, residents would not see an increase in their current $28.50 per $1,000 tax rate, thanks largely to a substantial decrease in the town’s share of school taxes to SAD 43, Madigan said.
A new state funding formula locked towns’ share of property taxes earmarked for schools at 8.26 percent. Mexico had been paying a much higher percentage.
If residents pass either of the proposed budgets, Madigan said he expects a surplus may begin. He expects the town will need about three years to build a surplus of about $300,000, a figure recommended by the Maine Municipal Association for towns the size of Mexico.
The tax rate will likely be set in late summer.
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