HALLOWELL — Despite a month of budget cuts by the City Council aimed at reducing tax increases, it is unlikely that Hallowell residents will be able to get any relief until the next budget cycle in 2025.

The Hallowell City Council learned Monday night that, according to the city attorney, councilors are not able to legally re-commit the city’s taxes in this budget cycle, an assumption the council had been working under while making more than $200,000 in budget cuts since Aug. 12. Residents’ property taxes went up by about 20% after councilors passed the annual budget in July.

About 40 residents attended Monday’s meeting, and many expressed frustration at the lack of clarity and accurate information from the council.

“As taxpayers, we’ve been asked to go forward, trusting that this is going to get straightened out, and we’re going to see reductions because you brought the budget under control, there’s going to be savings, our tax bills are going to go down,” Hallowell resident Jessica Tyson said. “Those of us who are elderly and others who are struggling are trusting that we’re going to pay our taxes and we’re going to see a reduction — not in 10 months. That’s part of the problem. I don’t know who your legal counsel is, but I don’t know where they’ve been.”

Charlotte Warren, a Hallowell resident, former mayor and former state legislator, said she was frustrated that the city had not provided clear information on the variation in tax increases and that much of the information the council was discussing — including that the city would not be able to re-commit taxes — was not made available to the public in advance of the meeting.

“We’re not the audience — we’re the public,” Warren said. “We’re the voters. We’re the people who are going to pay part of this bill. Could we please get some of these answers?”

After the City Council approved a budget July 29, the city’s Board of Assessors committed the city’s taxes — a legally binding process that allows the city to begin collecting the revenue it budgeted for. When the budget was passed, the city estimated the average tax increase would be about 19%, leading residents to organize a petition effort to cut hundreds of thousands of dollars from the budget and reduce its impact on taxes.

Hallowell Mayor George Lapointe Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal file

In response to a question from Ward 5 Councilor Patrick Wynne, Mayor George Lapointe said he spoke Monday with the city solicitor, who said it was likely impossible for the city to re-do the legally binding tax commitment. More information and an official memo on the legality of the move will come from the solicitor in the coming weeks, Lapointe said.

City Manager Gary Lamb said he learned the city would not be able to re-commit taxes just an hour before the meeting began in a call with the city solicitor, who suggested using the surplus created by the budget cuts to pay down expenses in the next budget and lower tax rates.

Gary Lamb, Hallowell city manager, speaks in January at an event in Augusta. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal file

“This is actually the first we’ve had this conversation on the council level, and it seems like this very much changes the direction we’ve been heading,” at-large Councilor Maureen AuCoin said. “I think prior to this, we’ve been looking at ways to change the budget to help the taxpayers. We’ve told them to pay their first bill and that we’d be working on this, and maybe there’d be a second billing that goes out.

“But if I’m understanding this right, there will be no second billing — if we want this to be less of a burden on the taxpayers, the route we’ve been talking about is no longer an option.”

An option discussed by the council for reducing taxpayer burden included issuing rebates — a credit paid back to the taxpayer — but the process for doing so was unclear.

Ward 1 Councilor and Finance Committee Chair Kate Dufour said the city may be able to set a certain percentage of property tax bills to be given back to residents upon request. Wynne, who proposed the rebate strategy, said he thought this was the best path forward because it was the only option for the city to put money back in residents’ pockets this year.

But AuCoin said the city would only be able to legally offer rebates to people with primary residences in Hallowell — not to businesses or people who own property in the city but live elsewhere. Residents would also need to show evidence of financial hardship, but it wasn’t clear during the meeting the level of hardship the city could require for rebates and whether that level could include all residents.

John McNaughton, a Hallowell resident who organized the petition effort to reverse the budget in August, said the rebate process would be inequitable and that increased costs to commercial properties would be unfairly passed down to renters.

“If you are excluding commercial for any sort of the discounts, you will affect people who are renting, and people who are renting are the least apt to be able to take this sort of increase,” McNaughton said.

Councilors Monday night had planned to discuss further cuts to the budget proposed by Lamb and Lapointe, but decided to delay further discussion until they received an official memo on the legality of re-committing taxes from the city solicitor.

The council’s next scheduled meeting is Oct. 7 at city hall, but Lapointe said the city may schedule a special meeting to discuss future steps within the next month.

Residents are still required to pay their increased tax bills, and interest will begin to accrue on unpaid bills on Sept. 18.