AUBURN — The Androscoggin County commission unanimously adopted the 2025 county budget, but one commissioner gave a dire warning about future finances.

Commissioners agreed to take $303,713 from the undesignated fund balance to cover the year-end deficit in the jail budget. With the infusion of cash from reserves, commissioners lowered the county tax rate to 9.43%.

Calling it a “travesty,” Commissioner Garrett Mason of Lisbon said expected budget shortfalls at the state level next year will only increase the budgetary pressure on the counties to properly fund the county jails.

“We need to tackle this in the next budget year,” Mason said. “This is a big issue. The Legislature needs to prioritize public safety. We don’t have control over it here.”

Even though the Maine Department of Corrections’ budget has increased each year, including by more than 10% this past year, according to Androscoggin County Sheriff Eric Samson, the state’s contribution for the county jails has remained flat funded for at least four years.

If the county continues to use the fund balance to cover the deficit, which is expected to grow each year, that account will soon run dry, County Treasurer Clarice Proctor said.

Proctor added that using the fund balance was the only legal way to cover the deficit since the amount is far above the cap that the statute allows counties to increase the budget.

But Mason said the county should simply add the $300,000-plus deficit to the budget and pay for it with taxes.

“Sue me for funding the jail,” Mason said. “We should fund it anyway. I would highly doubt the attorney general is going to sue us for adequately funding the jail when they won’t do it. ”

“Just fund it to where it needs to be,” he added. “Androscoggin County can be the one that is going to go out and say, ‘we’re going to do it anyway. You were not going to do it. You’re facing a billion-dollar shortfall in revenue.’ It falls back to us.”

“I don’t think it is appropriate for the county to go hat-in-hand up to the Legislature when we get to June of next year and say please give us money when the statute that you wrote won’t let us raise our own money, while we have to let people go out on bail because we don’t have room for them in our jail. It ‘s just nonsensical.”

Increasing the budget to pay for the deficit would have raised the county tax rate from 9.43% to 11.66%.

After 90 minutes of discussion on what direction to go, the board unanimously agreed to follow the treasurer’s recommendation and take the money from the shrinking fund balance.

Commissioners did accept two of the Budget Committee’s recommendations and increased expenditures by $5,900 to pay for training for the Emergency Management Agency and fully fund lodging for the district attorney’s prosecutors and victim advocates to get their certifications.

The board voted to cut the entire $8,197.29 for the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments since the municipalities already pay dues for those services. A request by the Androscoggin Historical Society to restore its $15,000 funding request was denied.

In other business, commissioners approved spending $397,875 in American Rescue Plan Act for security upgrades in hardware and software for the Sheriff’s Office. All ARPA spending must be obligated by Dec, 31.