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Fort Fairfield Town Council Opposes Taxpayer Bill of Rights

By: David Deschesne, editor/publisher

The Fort Fairfield Town Council recently approved resolution #06-15 opposing the TABOR (Taxpayer Bill of Rights) initiative.

The initiative would require a 2/3 vote of the local municipal government and approved by a majority of voters in the municipality affected by a mil rate increase. Any mil rate increases would be pegged to the current rate of inflation and reflect any population increase at the time.

“People are frustrated with high taxes,” said Fort Fairfield town manager, Dan Foster. “I believe that is because we lack leadership at the State level. To lead at that level is extremely difficult. If you don’t have leadership at the State level, you won’t be able to show the citizens why we need the money we spend.”

“People are very busy these days. They don’t have the time to understand why we have to spend the money we do, so they opt for a simplistic approach, such as the Taxpayer Bill of Rights.”

A recent study of Fort Fairfield’s tax revenue for the town (not including the school district) by the Maine Municipal Association illustrated the difference between tax money raised in 1995 through today with and without the TABOR initiative in place.

In 1995, the town of Fort Fairfield raised $1,970,389 to cover local services like police, fire, highway, etc. In 2005, that amount had increased to $2,243,736. If TABOR had been in effect, the 2005 tax revenue would have only been $1,814,463 - a difference of $429,273.

“That’s $429,273 less than what we actually collected,” said Foster. “To put it in perspective, that amount closely represents our collective budgets for the Fire Department, Police Department, Community and Economic Development and Library which have a combined total $435,000.”

“I use two criteria for determining if our departments are doing a good job and providing citizens with what they need,” said Foster. “One is, how many complaints I’m getting from the citizens; the other is how we compare with other communities’ costs per capita.” Fort Fairfield currently has some of the lowest per-capita rates for all public services. For example, the towns of Houlton and Presque Isle spend $181.00 and $140.75 respectively per capita for full time police protection with Fort Fairfield paying only $68.66 for the same service.

“Over the past few years, I haven’t received complaints about our police, fire, or recreation departments,” said Foster, “but I have received a lot of complaints about the roads. The town council addressed those complaints last year by allowing a mil rate increase to provide additional money to the Highway Department for paving, which we are starting to see in improvements to our roads.”

Fort Fairfield citizens live in a double township where 3,600 people have to pay to maintain and plow 96 miles of road. By comparison, Presque Isle’s population of 9,511 pays to maintain 110 miles of road. “If TABOR were to pass, it would make road maintenance and upgrades very difficult to do. If the population base drops, TABOR presumes that expenses should, too. But, we still have the same amount of roads to take care of - it doesn’t matter if there are two families, or fifty families.”

The recent 4/10 mil increase approved at last month’s town council meeting represents increased costs for Hydrant rental/maintenance from the Utilities District, increased costs to the School District and increased taxes to the County.

“This is not simplistic stuff and to make decisions regarding the providing of services and the corresponding revenues that are needed requires time and energy as comprises are agreed upon. Most people seem to be unwilling to do this and are looking for simple solutions to alleviate the perceived wasteful spending.” “I believe Fort Fairfield’s council and departments are doing a responsible job of controlling spending without TABOR.”