The adage “Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves” is turning out to be a bit harder these days for Maine towns. 

Since the end of last year, Edgecomb’s budget committee has been meeting with selectmen, members of Schmid Preserve, Boothbay Region Refuse Disposal District, and Edgecomb’s planning board, road commissioner, harbormaster, fire department, school committee and other interested parties to make sure it brings an acceptable 2020/21 town budget to residents after last year’s increase of 10%.  

Like family budgets, Edgecomb taxpayers have some costs that, while not fixed, are not discretionary.

In the current year’s budget, for example, costs for education ($2.678 million) were 65% of the total town budget of $ 4.1 million, the county tax was 7.6% or $311,884 and the services of the refuse district accounted for almost $128,000. Public safety was 4%, and snow and ice removal was 7.6% of the total.

All of this means any savings for taxpayers must come from the remaining 12% of the annual budget. It’s a challenging task for the budget committee, headed by Jack Brennan with Janet Blevins, Joe McSwain, Karen Potter and George Chase.

As Blevins explained in a recent interview with the Boothbay Register, there is no line item vote on education costs or the county tax, which together account for almost 75% of this year’s total budget.

“And since Edgecomb just received a higher valuation, it means less state funds to supplement the education costs,”  she pointed out. Any unforeseen school expense during the year “throws a curve ball into the budget,” she added.  

In early January,  the committee called a meeting with the selectboard and all department heads to explain how tight the budget was and to ask if there were any new capital expenditures so the committee could keep that in mind. The budget committee explained it was expecting a flat budget for 2020/21.

“Most of them have honored that,” said Blevins.“If more taxpayers were involved and understood what was going on, they could support us.”

To help accomplish that, the budget committee has called a meeting on Monday, March 9 at the town hall so that residents can see the 2021 budget and ask questions. The meeting will start at 6:45 p.m. after the regular selectmen’s meeting at 6 p.m.