County charter referendum divides commissioners, municipalities

The issue of who has the final authority on the county budget, especially regarding salaries and compensation for elected officials, has divided Androscoggin County’s commissioners and municipalities for the past year.

So it should be no surprise that the two groups are on opposite sides of Tuesday’s referendum vote to amend the county charter.

Androscoggin County residents will vote on the amendment that adds the following language to the section on compensation: “Notwithstanding the final authority of the Board of Commissioners over the adoption of the County budget under Section 5.5.4, no increase in the salaries or expansion of benefits of elected officials is effective without the approval of a majority plus one vote of the full Budget Committee.”

Commissioners voted in favor of the amendment when it was proposed in May. The municipalities and the county budget committee are urging a “no” vote.

“It’s a very positive thing to be assured that commissioners in the future cannot increase any compensation without a proper vote,” said Beth Bell, chairwoman of the Androscoggin County Commission. “That’s what we’ve been hearing all along, and we’ve agreed with that all along. I don’t think that people should be able to vote themselves a raise.”

The municipalities, however, dispute that, saying the referendum is nothing more than a power grab by commissioners.

“This referendum measure is cleverly written to mislead voters about the real issue,” said Emily Darby of Minot, the chairwoman of the budget committee. “The real issue is that the 2012 voter-approved charter prevented the commissioners from having any authority at all over their salaries and, more costly, over their benefits.

“The commissioners already succeeded in getting significant changes to the charter before it could even be implemented. Now the commissioners want to once again change their own rules by adding the phrase: ‘Notwithstanding the final authority of the Board of Commissioners’ and adding the diversionary carrot about raises and expansions.”

It is the first portion of the amendment that has raised the ire of opponents. Section 5.4.4 of the charter, which was amended by the Legislature, now gives commissioners final say on the budget. The referendum would reaffirm that authority.

But the original charter, adopted by county voters in 2012, gave final approval to the Budget Committee.

“That’s what we thought we had voted on,” Lewiston City Manager Ed Barrett said, who has led the fight for the 14 county municipalities against the commissioners. He called the tactic a “bait-and-switch.”

“What’s the situation right now? Who set the county commissioners’ salaries? The commissioners,” Barrett said. “Did the Budget Committee approve it? No. They rejected it. Does the budget committee have the authority to make changes in the budget? No, because the commissioners asked the Legislature to change that because it was a technical error in the charter.”

On top of that, Barrett said the changes were made without any notice to the municipalities.

“It’s like you sign an agreement to do something and the person who has the agreement runs off and changes the wording of it and says, ‘Here’s your agreement,'” Barrett said.

This issue came to a head during last year’s budget hearings. With the new charter calling for the hiring of a new county administrator and the election of four additional commissioners, the three sitting commissioners voted to lower their salaries to $5,000, with an extra $500 for the chairman and to cut their health insurance to individual coverage instead of family plans.

With the number of commissioners more than doubling, plus having an administrator to take care of the day-to-day operation of the county, the budget committee eliminated all health insurance and cut the salaries by another $2,000.

Citing the changes to the charter, commissioners rejected the budget committee’s vote and adopted their original proposal.

With Barrett leading the charge, 12 of the 14 county municipalities filed suit in July against the commissioners.

The majority of the municipalities in Androscoggin County have passed a resolution urging the county’s residents to defeat the referendum.

“I think the elected officials of nearly all the municipalities do understand the language and are taking formal positions to oppose the amendment and to inform their constituencies,” Darby said. “This is really about preserving the power of voters and taxpayers to oversee politicians who potentially prefer to protect their own self-interests instead of listening to the public.”

Bell and the commissioners dispute that.

“It’s evolved into something that I feel is a lot of misinformation and the lack of facts,” Bell said. “Unfortunately, people who have other agendas have taken this issue and made it much bigger than it really should be.

“I urge people to support the referendum,” Bell said.

ssherlock@sunjournal.com

Ballot question

Do you favor amending the Androscoggin County Charter, Article 3.7, Compensation, as follows:

Add the following: “Notwithstanding the final authority of the Board of Commissioners over the adoption of the County budget under Section 5.5.4, no increase in the salaries or expansion of benefits of elected officials is effective without the approval of a majority plus one vote of the full Budget Committee.”

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