GORHAM — Taxpayers can breathe a little easier for the fiscal year beginning July 1.
Following the town’s budget votes Tuesday, Gorham’s tax rate for the coming fiscal year is projected to go up just 6 cents with Cumberland County government responsible for 5 cents of that increase.
Town councilors in a special Zoom meeting unanimously approved a $42.7 million school spending plan and a $16.2 million municipal budget that accounts for only a penny increase in the tax rate. The school budget doesn’t raise taxes at all and now goes to voters in a validation referendum July 14.
The town appears to be bracing for potential economic repercussions related to the pandemic.
“We have no idea what will happen to the economy,” Town Manager Ephrem Paraschak told councilors.
Town Finance Director Sharon LaFlamme said Wednesday that the estimated tax rate rises slightly from $18.95 to $19.01 per thousand dollars of valuation. The county tax assessed on Gorham rose $91,178 from $1.2 million to $1.3 million, resulting in a nickel increase in the town tax rate.
“We are hoping for additional new valuation which will bring the mil down,” LaFlamme said in an email. “The final mil rate will be established late August/early September.”
School and municipal budgets both passed 7-0 and no one from the public called in to speak. Town Councilor Janet Kuech became eligible to vote on the school budget because she resigned her job as an ed tech at Narragansett Elementary School on May 7.
The school budget, revamped last month from an earlier proposal, rises from $41 million last year, but Superintendent Heather Perry said it will have no impact on the tax rate. The no tax-hike school budget hinges on the town’s overall valuation rising an estimated $21 million and the state’s education subsidy to Gorham remaining the same as last year.
The School Committee had approved a $43.1 million budget in April that would have raised taxes, but town councilors in a joint workshop last month ordered a no tax-hike budget.
Kuech said the School Department didn’t cut any positions from its budget that were currently filled.
Town Councilor Virginia Wilder Cross Tuesday thanked the School Committee for a flat budget and Town Council Chairman Suzanne Phillips said, “I appreciate all your efforts.”
Phillips also praised Paraschak.
“Ephrem did a really good job putting this budget together,” she said.
Paraschak’s proposed municipal budget had cut a part-time position in the town clerk’s office and another part-time job in Baxter Memorial Library. But Town Council Vice Chairman Ronald Shepard introduced an amendment reinstating the clerk’s office job.
“We need the position going forward,” Shepard said.
But the board did not back a move by Kuech to spare the part-time job cut at the library.
Kuech stepped down from her school job after 21 years. In an obvious reference to the pandemic and distance learning, Kuech in her letter said “the last two months have been quite jarring.”
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