Westbrook Mayor Colleen Hilton was in Augusta Tuesday to discuss Gov. Paul LePage’s budget proposal, and how it has affected the relationship between state and local governments.
Hilton, along with with Portland Mayor Michael Brennan, Mayor David Rollins of Augusta, and Mayor Donald Pilon of Saco, said the governor’s proposals, especially the proposed cuts to municipal revenue sharing, are hurting the state and local relationship and putting more pressure on local officials to increase local property taxes.
Other topics included education funding, General Assistance, sales tax expansions, changes to income taxes, broadband, and efficiency funding.
The four mayors are members of the Mayors’ Coalition on Jobs and Economic Development, an 11-member coalition that advocates for municipalities.
Hilton said Wednesday that she wanted to speak at the press conference due to the amount of “uncertainty” that Westbrook faced during the budget process. The city held a first reading on the fiscal year 2015-16 budget Monday, which includes a 78- cent property tax increase.
“There are some policy recommendations coming out of the Governor’s office that can be pretty detrimental to what we are in the process of passing,” she said.
Hilton spoke about General Assistance and asked state lawmakers to fix a language error that could cost Efficiency Maine $38 million for home and business electricity efficiency programs.
“These are important projects,” she said, adding that the governor’s proposals for General Assistance could have large impacts on cities like Portland and Bangor.
“And it certainly has a financial impact on Westbrook,” she said.
Hilton added that Brennan discussed municipal revenue sharing, which the governor has proposed to cut entirely over the next two years, but make up for with expanded state sales tax. She agrees with her neighboring mayor about the impact that could have. Westbrook would lose a total of roughly $1 million over that time frame.
Hilton said revenue losses, especially in state aid to education, are largely to blame for Westbrook’s tax increase in next year’s budget.
“You just can’t manufacture $1.2 million in revenue,” she said. “That’s why I was there with the other mayors – to try to influence, if we can, policies to be more favorable to the local communities.”
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