The Waldo County Commissioners are holding the public hearing for the 2026 Waldo County budget at 6pm on Friday, December 12, at the County Commissioners Courtroom (39B Spring Street, Belfast) and online via Zoom.
A copy of the proposed budget, which proposes a 36% annual increase, is available here.
A bit of context from Breanna Pinkham Bebb, Northport Select Board Chair and member of the County Budget Committee:
“The proposed county budget increase means a huge hit for taxpayers. It is painful to all of us. As a committee, we spent over 30 hours in meetings drilling through line by line with department heads over the last 2.5 months. The biggest contributor to this is health insurance for county employees. I.T. was another hit. It’s incredible what it costs to run tech for a modern, dependable, compliant Sheriff’s department for example.
“And we’re all being buried under rising costs in our own lives too. Every committee member feels that and takes it seriously. The proposed budget at the beginning of our work was much higher and we were able to cut about 9% off that to get to this budget.
“Now, some good things… This budget represents a more realistic (i.e., not pulling from reserve accounts) and financially sound approach. The County is getting caught up on financial audits (ask any school or municipality – there aren’t enough auditors to do this work and it takes longer than it used to), and we have a dedicated and skilled finance director who has stuck with us after several staff turnovers in just a few years. We also have a new Commissioner with decades of experience in the big business side of healthcare who is trying to get the County out of ‘self-insuring’ for employee healthcare, which could mean some savings in next year’s cycle.
“If you’ve been paying attention to the news of other counties (Washington, Knox…) it’s pretty grim out there. I was skeptical when I first joined the committee. But, I’ve seen a lot of transparency and accountability from the Commissioners and department heads during this process. As well as thoughtful collaboration among the committee as we did our darnedest to wrestle with the tax burden.
“I welcome questions and ideas at breanna@northportmaine.org. I learned a ton about the services the County provides and the ‘why’ behind all of the costs, and I am happy to share what I know with residents.
“As a Town we will be doing our best during our own budget planning this Spring to account for the County increase and try to keep our overall Mil rate under control. In the meantime, the Public Hearing for the County Budget is this Friday at 6pm at the Probate building at 39B Spring Street, Belfast. All are welcome in person or via Zoom.”