AUBURN – A regional planning group has paid a portion of back taxes on its office building, which could mean cuts in services to member towns and cities, its director says.

“It’s just like your household budget when you have to pay something unexpected,” said Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments Executive Director Bob Thompson. “If you have to shell out (money), it has to come from somewhere.”

The tax payment is money “that is not being budgeted into staff or programs,” Thompson said. “It can’t come from anywhere else.”

The group’s board of directors decided not to pass the costs along to the council’s 48 member communities in the form of higher dues. Instead, it worked the costs into AVCOG’s budget.

AVCOG paid the city of Auburn $20,230.29 for 2004 property taxes, interest and penalties on Oct. 27. It was the oldest tax bill on its 125 Manley Road property and erased a lien that would have matured this month.

AVCOG still owes $20,075.81 in 2005 taxes, according to Tax Collector Kathy Levesque. That lien is scheduled to mature in January 2008.

The quasi-governmental AVCOG also owes Auburn $9,679.42 for the first half of this tax year. That payment was due on Oct. 16. The last half is due in March 2007.

Thompson said the agency’s directors did not decide about the remaining taxes when it agreed to paid off the 2004 bill.

“That’s something they will discuss at a later date,” Thompson said.

AVCOG offers planning support and purchasing for municipal governments in Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford counties. It gets much of its revenue from dues paid by member towns and cities, including Auburn.

Auburn paid the second highest dues – $21,857 – this year, according to the group’s 2006 budget. Lewiston pays $25,000. Jay pays the third-highest amount, $11,248, according to the budget.

AVCOG had not paid property taxes on its nearly 10,000-square-foot office building until last year, when it paid its 2003 tax bill. The city didn’t even assess taxes on it until former Assessor Joe Downey did so in 1997, eight years after it was built.

The city repeatedly waived the tax bill, however. Officials maintained the group was exempt until 2003, when City Councilor Bob Mennealy questioned the practice. An interpretation by the city’s lawyer agreed that AVCOG should pay.

The group appealed to the city’s Assessment Review Board in 2004, but the board agreed that state law did not exempt AVCOG from property taxes. An appeal to the Legislature to exempt quasi-municipal groups from property taxes also failed that year.