Lloyd Irland, a selectman from Wayne and chairman of the Kennebec County Budget Committee, signs budget documents in May 2024 at Hill House in Augusta. The committee begins its work Wednesday on the budget for the next fiscal year. Jessica Lowell/Kennebec Journal file

AUGUSTA — A committee of town officials from across Kennebec County will begin deliberating Wednesday on a draft county budget that would raise spending by about 10%.

Ballooning county-level costs have become a growing pattern over the last several years as officials wrestle with stagnating state funding, expiring federal dollars and rising needs. The draft budget for the fiscal year that begins on July 1 and ends on June 30, 2026, calls for $25.6 million in spending, up from last year’s $23.3 million.

The Kennebec County Budget Committee plans to meet weekly over the next month to hear from county departments on their section of the budget and adopt changes. The first substantive meeting of the committee will be held Wednesday at 6 p.m. at 125 State St. in Augusta.

The committee is made up of nine municipal officials from across the county and chaired for the second straight year by Lloyd Irland, a Wayne selectman.

Perhaps most notably, the committee is tasked with reviewing the budget for the Kennebec County jail, which itself accounts for more than half of the county’s total costs and more than a third of the draft budget’s spending increase.

In a letter earlier this month to legislators, Somerset County Administrator Tim Curtis said county jails across the state, including the one in Augusta, are in desperate need of more funding to stay afloat. Earlier this year, county administrators asked state lawmakers for about $14 million for jails, but that request was reduced to about $4 million in Gov. Janet Mills’ budget.

“At this level of financial support, the State contributes less than 20% of the overall cost of operating County Jails notwithstanding the fact that the primary function of our county jails is to support the statewide criminal justice system over which county government has relatively little control,” Curtis said.

State funding stagnation has coincided with the expiration of federal American Rescue Plan Act funds, leaving some major programs without a continuing funding source.

The county had used ARPA funds to kickstart its MD3 pilot program, which brings doctors to the scene of crashes and crimes. Federal funding extended through September 2024, with county taxes paying for the program through the end of the fiscal year.

Continuing the program would be expensive. Under the draft budget, MD3 would cost the county $221,500 in the next fiscal year — almost a 10th of the total proposed budget increase. Some estimates suggest the full-capacity cost of the program would be closer to $350,000.

Dr. Tim Pieh drives the MD3 response vehicle in Clinton in January 2024. Funding for MD3, a Kennebec County program that allows a physician to directly respond to emergencies in the field, will be part of county budget deliberations, which start Wednesday. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal file

Irland, the budget committee chair, said the program is expected to be part of the discussions to trim spending.

“We’re going to have a tough time with that one, we really are,” he said. “I gather, from what people are saying around the table, that that’s going to be viewed as a luxury these days because both us and the state don’t have any extra money this time.”

But doctors in the pilot program have said cutting off that funding to save the county money would be a mistake. The program has already saved lives, and has the potential to make a substantial difference in local medical outcomes, they said.

The draft budget would ask taxpayers to fund about $20.7 million of the $25.6 million spending plan — a 13.7% increase in required tax revenue over the current budget.

Under the draft budget, property tax would fund $6.3 million more for the county budget than it did just two years ago, and $8.3 million more than five years ago. A new increase to taxes would come on the heels of a 28% county tax revenue jump approved last spring.

Last year’s jump brought the ire of some municipal officials, who claimed the tax burden increase put towns and cities in a rough spot amid swelling school budgets and rising municipal needs.

Towns and cities are responsible for collecting taxes for the county budget, their school district’s budget and their own municipal budget. County requirements often make up a small portion of the total tax revenue collected by most cities and towns. In Augusta, county taxes went up 25% during the most recent budget cycle, but accounted for 6.6% of all taxes collected by the city. In Waterville, it was 5.7%.

But in Gardiner, Mayor Pat Hart said the county budget accounted for 20% of the city’s tax rate increase last year. She said many residents blamed city officials for the increase.

“The city of Gardiner sends out the tax bill,” Hart said. “Sometimes, we’re able to put information in with the tax bills and other bills to explain it to people, but at the end of the day, you’re writing your tax check out to the city of Gardiner. It does fall heavily on the shoulders of the folks here, even though it’s not all city spending.”

She said she would like to see the county take a more cautious approach to budgeting, phasing in programs and pay increases over several years. She said that should especially be implemented for labor costs, which made up a substantial portion of both Gardiner and Kennebec County’s budget increases last year.

Most of all, though, Hart said, she would like to see improved communication from county officials about budget priorities and the budgeting process.

“We don’t get it summarized, we don’t get the what’s what, we don’t get the background — we just get an enormous Excel pivot table,” Hart said. “That’s not communicating. What would be helpful is proactive, clear and effective communication about their priorities, considering the taxpayers’ ability to shoulder the burden of the municipal services and schools. We all need to work together.”