SKOWHEGAN — Amid financial crises and double-digit tax increases facing other Maine counties, Somerset County officials are putting forward a budget proposal that would come with an overall 3.5% tax increase.

Major changes in the fiscal year 2027 proposed budget include adding a new detective position and wage increase for district attorney’s office staff, along with new jail revenue from a boarding contract with Waldo County. County officials, who initially considered a budget with little or no tax increase, also decided to increase the amount they budget for future capital expenditures.

How the 3.5% property taxation increase would translate to the tax assessment for each municipality would vary according to year-to-year changes in their state-determined property valuation. While nearly all municipalities would see an increase in property taxes, budget documents show assessments for some municipalities — including Athens, Cornville, Embden, Moscow and Solon — would decrease compared to the current fiscal year.

Taxpayers get their only chance to weigh in on the budget proposal at a public hearing 6 p.m. May 4 at the Somerset County Superior Court at 41 Court St. in Skowhegan.

The Budget Committee, made up of 10 appointed and elected municipal officials evenly representing each of the county’s five commissioner districts, can then adjust its budget proposal and will then vote on it.

After that, the Board of Commissioners, which already voted on the draft budget the committee subsequently reviewed, gets what is typically the final say. Whether the five commissioners will take that vote May 4 or at their next regularly scheduled meeting May 6 has not been determined, County Administrator Tim Curtis said Tuesday.

Under the county charter, the commissioners need a two-thirds majority to overrule any Budget Committee vote, but the committee can then reject that decision by its own two-thirds majority. Controversy appears unlikely, given that the committee made no changes to the budget it received from the commissioners.

Proposed spending totals approximately $26.42 million, which breaks down to approximately $12.39 million for the jail and $14.03 million for all other departments. 

Of the $26 million in spending, about $15.52 million would be funded by property taxes: $6.9 million for the jail and approximately $8.62 million for the other county departments. Those figures do not include an additional 1% overlay that the Board of Commissioners typically sets upon final budget approval.

County departments include the divisions of the sheriff’s office other than the jail, emergency management agency, regional communications center, registry of deeds, probate court, and district attorney’s office.

The county departments do not include the services specific to the unorganized territories; those are accounted for through a separate budget sent to the state for approval each fall. It also does not include spending funded by opioid settlements, tax increment financing and community benefit agreements for wind power development.

The proposal includes an additional detective position in the sheriff’s office, which Sheriff Dale Lancaster said was necessary to address a backlog in cases that need investigation. Other significant additions include across-the-board wage increases for non-attorney staff in the district attorney’s office, which District Attorney Maeghan Maloney said is aimed at improving employee retention and address an increasing workload with the courts’ new e-filing system.

Union contracts that set wage increases for deputies, corrections officers and dispatchers also contributed to the proposed bump in spending, according to Curtis, the administrator.

The proposal includes raising $1,262,800 for capital reserves: $640,800 for the general budget and $622,000 for the jail. Those amounts came in higher than initially discussed after Finance Manager Patrick Dolan suggested developing a longer-term capital plan and setting a percentage benchmark for capital reserves in each annual budget.

“My plan was to try to offset whatever the new costs of the detective were by not raising as much in capital,” Curtis said. “The commissioners took a slightly different turn. They said, ‘Let’s take this opportunity while it’s a relatively flat budget to establish a capital protocol.’”

Some of the spending increases are offset by new revenue, including state-determined fee increases for the registry of deeds and a new, five-year inmate boarding contract with Waldo County expected to bring in about $1.5 million this year.

The proposal includes the use of $935,000 in available undesignated fund balance to offset taxation. The commissioners, when preparing the initial proposal, considered different amounts of fund balance and ultimately settled on that figure to result in the 3.5% tax increase.

During their deliberations, county officials decided against raising the “jail cap,” which remains at $6.9 million in property taxes. State law puts a limit on the amount a Maine county can increase taxes each year for funding its jail. 

Somerset officials expect to raise the cap in the coming years. This legislative session, sheriffs and county commissioners from across Maine continued to lobby the state for increased jail funding but were not as successful as they had hoped.