LEWISTON – State revenue officials have admitted to making an error when calculating a specific tax reimbursement payment to Maine towns, resulting in overpayments to more than 100 towns and underpayments to more than 300 others.

In the most egregious cases, the town of Allagash was overpaid by more than $200,000 and Freeport was shorted more than $31,000, after the state distributed inaccurate municipal tree growth reimbursements.

Town officials say they are frustrated but not shocked by the mistake.

“I guess it says something that I wasn’t at all surprised they made the error,” said David Holt, Norway’s town manager. He said the approximately $9,000 the state owes his town is “negligible” in terms of the overall budget, but for other towns it has caused headaches.

Landowners who qualify receive state property tax breaks for growing and responsibly harvesting trees on their land. The state reimburses towns for the lost revenue according to a complex tax formula. The formula was based on several variables that were highly inconsistent from year to year, making towns unable to predict the annual revenue.

The state worked with the Maine Municipal Association last year to alter the formula and reduce the variables, hoping to improve consistency.

David Ledew, director of the state property tax division, said the payment each town now receives will still change every year, just more gradually.

“Obviously there are going to be changes in this first year that it’s implemented, but from here on out they should pretty much stabilize,” Ledew said.

But after the state checks were mailed out to towns in early July, it became clear that something was amiss and it wasn’t just the new formula.

“We made an error in the calculation,” Ledew said. “We sent too much money to some towns and not enough to others. Once it was caught, we realized we over-reimbursed about 114 municipalities in the state.”

Renee Hodsdon, Roxbury’s treasurer, said her town was scrambling to pay the state back after learning it owes about $30,000.

“I was shocked when (the state) told me the amount they were giving us,” she said. “I asked them quite a few times, ‘Are you sure?’ and I was told that the formula was re-worked so that it would help towns.”

Geoff Herman, director of state and federal relations of the Maine Municipal Association, said towns that were paid too much will probably face more problems than towns that were paid too little.

“Presumably, everyone’s going to be made whole at the end of this,” he said. “If you got shortchanged, there’s no real downside; it’s the ones that have been over-paid and have to pay back that will have the problem.”

Hodsdon agreed.

“Once we got the check, we used it to lower the tax rate,” she said. “The selectmen are looking into exactly how we can pay it back. I called to ask if we could wait, and (the state) said to send what we could because they have to pay the towns that they short-changed.”

Mechanic Falls, Mexico and Minot are just a few of those towns still waiting for the balance of money due. Each was shorted several thousand dollars.

John Hawley, Mechanic Falls’ town manager, said when his town contacted the state, he was told the check for $314 was correct. It was only later, when many other towns complained about the same problem, that the state realized Mechanic Falls was supposed to receive about $3,700.

By early August, the state had notified all the towns it had overpaid, giving them 30 days to return the funds. The towns that were underpaid received no notification from the state.

Herman said he sent out an e-mail Wednesday morning to all town officials with an explanation of the state’s mistake, including a complete list of what towns were supposed to get and what they actually received.

“It’s a difficult circumstance that creates hard feelings, no doubt about it,” he said.