JAY — Residents on Tuesday suggested several ways to lower a proposed $6.65 million municipal budget, including eliminating curbside trash pickup, decreasing benefits to town employees and reducing the 26-member staff.

Other recommendations were to cut 10 percent from budgets across the board, not pay for employee insurance, privatize some services, increase sewer rates and close the library.

Residents also plan to try to lower the Regional School Unit 73 budget, which has not been set.

Town officials, Budget Committee members and department heads reviewed much of the proposed 2017-18 spending package during a nearly five-hour meeting. They will meet again Monday, Jan. 23, at Spruce Mountain Middle School cafeteria. Selectpersons will meet at 5 p.m. followed by a budget workshop at 5:30.

The spending plan is $1.38 million more than the current budget. It factors in a $1.33 million payment to Verso Corp. as part of a $4 million settlement for overvaluing the Androscoggin Paper Mill and associated property. One $1.33 million payment was made through an abatement.

After factoring in anticipated revenues, the net budget is $5.25 million, $1.37 million more than this year’s budget.

One of the more than 30 residents attending the workshop asked what the town faced for a tax rate.

There is a whole lot of guesswork to figure out a tax rate at this time, Town Manager Shiloh LaFreniere said.

For one, they do not know what the value of the mill will be once a second paper machine and associated equipment are shut down early this year, she said. Verso is also laying off 190 employees. Verso shut down a paper machine and other equipment and eliminated 300 jobs in 2016.

Based on a lot of assumptions and projected revenue estimates that include a 25 percent loss in the mill’s value, Verso’s tax cap being $500,000 less than last year, paying less county taxes and more state education subsidy to benefit town, the rate could go up $3.30 per $1,000 of assessed value, LaFreniere said.

It would bring the tax rate up to $24.40, a rate not seen in Jay for more than 17 years, if ever.

The current tax rate is $3.85 more than the previous year.

Resident Herschel Welch asked how people will adjust to that, especially with people not being able to afford their taxes now. 

Services and budgets have been reduced in recent years. 

“It is hard to cut money without cutting services, Budget Committee member Bill Calden said.

“We either go bankrupt or we cut and cut,” resident Tony Couture said.

While reviewing a proposed $1.25 million Public Works budget, Calden said $34,000 per employee for benefits is too much. The department has 8½ employees, including Director John Johnson. The half-time employee also works half time at the Transfer Station.

The benefit amount covers employer shares of FICA and Medicare taxes, retirement and health insurance. Johnson calculated the numbers based on each employee working 275 hours of overtime.  If those hours are not worked, the benefit line would decrease.  

Johnson, also supervisor of the town’s Transfer Station, asked residents what they wanted to cut.

The problem is the town has lived off two paper mills, resident Wayne Atwood said.

The Wausau Paper Mill shut down in 2009.

Retired resident Tom White said he has to save in excess of $100 a week to pay his property taxes. He reviewed all of the department budgets and believes that employee benefit packages, including allotted days off, are too generous, he said.

He said he doesn’t mind paying 100 percent for employee health insurance but is against paying for family coverage. Other residents wanted employees to contribute more toward insurance or to pay for their own.

LaFreniere said all union contracts expire on June 30. She recommended residents talk to selectpersons about what they would like to see in a new negotiated agreement. Department heads already took a higher deductible health plan beginning Feb. 1.

White asked what the plan for the town was for the next three years. The final payment for Verso’s settlement will be included in the 2018-19 budget.

“If we lose the mill, what are we doing to save the town from collapse?” he asked.

Budget Committee member Kay Booker said they should “go for a plan that is going to say ‘bye-bye mill’” so that residents who live here can stay here.

dperry@sunmediagroup.net