By Daniel Hartill,Staff Writer

POLAND – The town’s tax blunder – now figured at a $2.7 million shortfall – may have also led the state to underpay Poland in aid to education.

Town leaders have discovered that the mistaken calculations that overvalued property were shared with the county and the state.

“It may affect the county taxes,” said Rosemary Roy, Poland’s interim town manager. “It may change the formulas with the state.”

Added school aid might even make up for some of the town’s shortfall.

“That would be good,” Roy said. “That would be very good.”

Nothing is certain, though.

Roy has yet to talk with either the county or the state about the problem, she said. Her office is researching its paperwork and gathering information in hopes of talking with officials before the end of the week.

The town will have some explaining to do.

Like all towns, Poland figures its tax rate by comparing the money it needs to raise against the total amount of taxable property in the town.

However, property meant to be shielded from the town’s value – via tax increment financing deals with Poland Spring Water Co. – was accidentally included in the calculation, said Bruce Nadeau, the town’s auditor.

The tax rate, just over $21 per $1,000 of valuation, was kept artificially low. Less money than budgeted was raised, since the taxes taken from the water company were, as planned, set aside for special projects.

Slowly, the town slipped into the red.

The same numbers that created Poland’s problem were shared with the state and the county, Roy said Wednesday. They have been since 2000, when the tax deal was established with the water company.

This year, the state is set to award Poland $4.38 million in school money. Roy did not know how much more money the town may have received under the correct valuation.

Until the state hears from Poland, no official comment will be made, said James Rier, the Maine Department of Education’s policy director for school funding.

However, if the state believes it underpaid Poland, it may take an act of the Legislature to pay up, he said. The state doesn’t keep a reserve for such errors.

If the state has underpaid the town, it hasn’t done so as long as the mistake has been around. In determining its aid, the education department uses numbers collected three years earlier and published by the Maine Revenue Services, Rier said.

However long the problem has been going on, Selectman Wendy Sanborn is angry.

Though she has been dealing with the issue for weeks, Sanborn said she is upset that further problems arose. Mistakes begot mistakes.

“I’m still so vague on this,” she said, trying to get a handle on what happened.

She compared the problem to a small businessperson filing his taxes, listing the revenue and forgetting the formidable expenses.

“You look rich on paper,” she said. “But you’re really broke.”

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