According to
google, these are the mil rates and population for towns in Androscoggin
County. What should stand out to everyone is the major discrepancy between
the mil rates and the populations.
TOWNS MIL RATE POPULATION
Auburn 23.68 22,948
Sabattus 17.75 5,015
Lisbon 24.84 8,846
Lewiston 28.67 36,140
Durham 18.85 3,940
Wales 14.85 1,634
Greene 17.80 4,373
Poland 14.74 5,544
Minot 15.85 2,596
Livermore Falls
21.60 3,115
Turner 17.05 5,765
As you can see Lisbon has moved into
second place in the county as far as the mil rate goes surpassing Auburn.
These figures for population are from 2016. The reason for the discrepancy is because our Town
Manager, Diane Barnes, compares populations when determining salaries instead
of the tax base for the towns. As everyone knows Auburn has many more
commercial businesses than Lisbon and yet our mil rate is higher.
There is no
way that the salaries of Department Heads in Lisbon should be as high as they
are starting out. We just do not have the tax base to support such high salaries and
the Town Manager knew this from the start but used population to establish
salaries without comparing tax bases and our Town Council believes everything
the Town Manager says as gospel.
The Town
Council needs to delay voting on spending issues until the Council can do
adequate investigations. The Town
Council needs to cut spending to include the Town Manager’s salary. The Department Heads are receiving between $1,200.00 and
$1,800.00 annually and taxpayers in Lisbon cannot afford these increases. There is no way to reduce Department
Heads salaries because the Town Manager, Diane Barnes has committed the
taxpayers into paying these outrageous salaries.
Taxpayers and the Town Council have
to pay more attention to the spending habits of the Town Manager and her
Department Heads. We have to bring down our mil rate so that it is more in
line with our population and other towns in the county.
Let’s put a halt to excessive spending
and start comparing apple to apples instead of apples to oranges.
Larry Fillmore