With Town Meeting swiftly approaching on the first Monday of March, there are three topics on all our minds: Taxes. Basketball. Spring.
Let’s be hopeful about all three – and read on for four suggested strategies you can use to better impact local budgets and taxes.
On Monday, February 9 the Town of Stonington held a public meeting to walk residents through the local budget items up for approval as warrant articles at this year’s Town Meeting. The week before, the Town held a public hearing to hear from the nonprofits whose “third party requests” make up approximately $80,000, or 2%, of this budget.
The local tax bill you receive is made up of these and also the Hancock County tax assessment, by which residents pay for county services including but not limited to sheriff, jail, courthouse, and transportation services; as well as the consolidated school district (CSD) budget.
This year’s estimated county tax bill for Stonington has been assessed at $240,000, or about 5% of your total bill.
The school district operates on a July 1 - June 30 fiscal year so are just beginning their budgeting process. School costs annually make up approximately 45% or more of your tax bill. Deer Isle-Stonington is known as a “low receiver” of state education funds due to our high coastal property valuations: the state does not cover 55% of our school costs as it does in other areas of the state. Our small towns are annually responsible for the bulk of an almost $8 million school budget on our own; if school funding formulas worked for towns like Stonington, we would be responsible for less than half that total.
#1 strategy for taxpayers seeking lower local costs: attend school and municipal budget meetings.
The Town’s proposed operating budget makes up the final half of your taxes. This year’s proposed budget is $2,299,781, which represents a $106,981, or 4.88%, increase over 2025.
However: the selectmen have offset that increase by appropriating funds from surplus to make the local share flat this year, causing no increase to your tax bill.
The only increases, therefore, that Stonington residents will see to property taxes are from school and county budgets.
The Select Board’s decision is based on their knowledge of the relationship between property taxes and year round housing for our work force to keep Stonington a vital, year-round community.
Thanks to our beautiful coastal properties we are a “high valuation” (and thus “low receiver” for school funds) community. As property taxation, school funding and local revenue sharing are structured in the state constitution the Town is prohibited from accessing much of that value without harming local workers: we cannot levy targeted local taxes, or differentiate the tax rate between seasonal and year round residents.
#2 strategy for taxpayers seeking lower local costs: advocate for changes to state tax policies through your local legislators.
Despite our isolated location and small population, Stonington, thanks to our standing as Maine’s #1 lobster port, functions as a service center for our fisheries and marine economies. With our commercial fish pier, public doc, three working waterfronts, access to Acadia National Park and public utilities, Stonington is more of a “tiny city” than an ordinary coastal village. Unlike many surrounding communities, the Town, thanks in large part to its former population density, manages a public water company and sanitary district. These are real assets that make Stonington the envy of many towns, as housing development costs within these public utility districts are lower than outside of them. Sadly, during the real estate rush of the pandemic, year round residents lost control of over 50% of this historic housing stock. Now the Town is working on a number of strategies to make it possible to invite and encourage year round residents to live downtown again. The Town succeeds in its required operations thanks to dedicated grant seeking, writing, and awards totalling in the millions of dollars of investments to infrastructure and other improvements.
#3 strategy for year-round residents to lower taxes is to be signed up to receive the state’s Homestead Exemption reduction. Recently, we became aware of citizens who mistakenly believed this exemption is only for elderly residents. The Homestead Exemption provides a reduction of up to $25,000 in the value of your home for property tax purposes for all permanent residents of Maine whose property is your primary residence. Because the exemption applies to any residential property assessed as real property, it also covers mobile homes even if they are on rented lots. To qualify, file an application on or before April 1 with the municipality with the Town. And let’s advocate with our state legislators for getting that exemption amount increased! And P.S.: if you have sufficient assets to pay your taxes without this exemption – please don’t apply for it. All property tax exemptions like this and including those for nonprofit properties erode the overall tax base and thereby increase costs for your neighbors.
Finally, the transfer station is the second largest cost center for the Town. The millions of pounds of waste we ship out daily cost taxpayers dearly. You can help to reduce these by following the updated recycling and waste reduction instructions available at the transfer station.
#4 strategy: the more we reduce material waste, the more we can also reduce the costs of removing it.
The Town is here to help and your questions, ideas and actions are important. Please connect with us via email at econdev@stoningtonmaine.org; by stopping by the Town office; or by calling 207-367-2351.
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