NEW GLOUCESTER — The town’s full-time assessing agent is on medical leave and town officials are scampering to find certified assessors to complete the town’s commitment to set the mill rate so they can send out tax bills.

Town Manager Sumner Field III said Wednesday that he received a fax late Monday morning from full-time assessing agent Nancy Pinette stating she would be on medical leave again until mid-September.

She had returned to duty on July 6 after a medical leave that began on May 1.

The town has grappled since late winter with outsourcing assessing to a private contractor. Voters at town meeting in early May nixed the concept by voting no funding for eight municipal accounts that included the assessing budget.

Voters at a special town meeting in June again overturned selectmen and Budget Committee recommendations to stick to the outsourcing option, voting to fully fund the full-time employee post.

“This is a critical time,” Field said. “There is the legal requirement that the (tax) commitment is due to the state on Nov. 1. And, the town voted to establish Oct. 8 as the due date for taxes to be collected.”

Selectmen usually set the mill rate in August.

The remaining assessing work includes completing personal property declarations; going out in the field to pick up work from permits issued by the town’s code enforcement officer; dealing with property transfers and property splits and exemptions. And, the Tax Increment Financing District at Pineland Center has to be assessed for new structures and personal property for business establishments at the site.

Selectmen authorized Field to find certified assessors to do the work necessary to finalize the tax commitment earlier this week.

New Gloucester has a policy to send bills out 45 to 60 days before the due date of collection.

Field said he had talked to several people this week and hopes to have a recommendation for approval by the end of the week. If that occurs, he said, work would begin next week.

The cost for contracted assessment services was not yet known. He estimated the work would take from three to six weeks, depending on the number of assessors that can be recruited.