Washington County is asking voters to approve an $11 million bond issue to help fill a multimillion dollar gap in its budget caused by years of mismanagement.
Inaccurate recordkeeping and slow audits caused officials to repeatedly overestimate the county’s reserves and underestimate how much it needed to raise taxes to cover its expenses. After using up millions from a federal COVID-19 stimulus bill and taking out millions more in short-term loans, the county is now deep in debt that it needs to refinance.
Communities across Maine are already livid over rising property taxes, and Washington County is one of the most politically conservative and poorest counties in the state. The bond issue is being pitched to voters by the county commission as being the only way to dig out of the hole.
“It won’t be pretty,” Commissioner Billy Howard, a Republican from Calais, said of what would happen if voters turned them down. “We’re gonna be in a real pickle.”
The alternative would likely mean steep cuts to services like the county jail and sheriff’s office. The county must repay a $7.6 million short-term loan by December. If new funds are not raised by then, the county may run out of cash, rendering it unable to pay its 110 employees working in 911 dispatch, the registry of deeds, emergency management and other departments.
The issue started more than five years ago. Between 2020 and 2024, county officials carried estimates of surplus cash from each year into the next year’s budget “without verifying that the funds were actually present,” said Renee Gray, Washington County’s manager.
The county’s 2021 audit was only completed this August. Auditors reported that the books were out of balance and that the county had done little to reconcile them. Compounding the problem, funds from the federal American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 were placed in the general fund, keeping cash flowing and preventing officials from noticing the dwindling balance.
“Had it not been for the ARPA funds, the county would have recognized the cash flow shortage a lot sooner,” Gray said.
She said the money from the federal law was accounted for appropriately. But the struggle to complete audits has forced officials to work with estimates of county funds, rather than the actual totals of money coming and going.
“This is the danger of the lack of audits and auditors within the state,” said former Commissioner Chris Gardner, who was serving when the error was first discovered in 2024. “It’s not due to lack of trying; it’s just lack of professionals to perform the work.”
Gray expressed hope that residents will understand that an error was made. With interest, the bond could ultimately cost taxpayers around $14.7 million over the next 10 years, though the terms of the loan are not yet set in stone.
The errors cannot be traced back to any one person, but “about 15 actually” as well as members of the public that could have attended meetings, the county manager said. The commissioners held a testy hearing on the bond plan in Augusta featuring criticism from Washington County residents, according to the Machias Valley News Observer.
Baileyville Town Manager Chris Loughlin, a member of the county’s budget panel, said he wished there was someone he could blame, but there were “so many factors” leading to the deficit.
“Would I like to see it different? Oh, hell yes,” he said. “Is there gonna be some interesting talks in this budget season? Oh, I think so. But we’re where we are whether we like it or not.”
Daniel O’Connor is a Report for America corps member who covers rural politics as part of the partnership between The Maine Monitor and the Bangor Daily News, with additional support from BDN and Monitor readers.