At the Oct. 25 Lincoln County budget committee workshop, after much discussion and an executive session on a personnel matter, the panel tabled the Sheriff’s Office budget to give Sheriff Todd Brackett time to try to pare his figures.

Brackett had requested another deputy. He said calls for service could reach 21,800 this year, up from 20,834 in 2017 and 11,506 in 2015.

Brackett said some issues were trivial, like most burglar alarm calls. “Ninety-nine percent of the time, they’re false alarms. But we have to respond.” If the county were to try to recoup those costs, towns would have to make ordinances the Sheriff’s Office would enforce, and homeowners or businesses could be charged for false alarm calls, Brackett said. He said eventually, the individuals would hold the security companies accountable, and hopefully bring down the number of false alarms. The budget committee was enthusiastic and asked Brackett to come up with figures for how much could be charged and how much of deputies’ time could be saved.

However, Brackett said, other than false burglar alarms, the county will still have more calls for service, primarily due to the opioid crisis. Besides medical calls for overdoses, and arrests for trafficking, the crisis increases complaints of thefts, burglaries and other crimes to feed the habit, he said.

Brackett provisionally hired a deputy last year for traffic control, but the person could not sell his home out of state and withdrew from the process. Besides the unfilled position, Brackett was seeking a second deputy to address increasing calls for service. 

The committee was less sure about the second slot, which, along with increases in employee benefit costs and contractual services, such as increasing the hours for the Addiction Resource Center part-time employee, would have pushed the budget up by $140,751, to a total of $3,050,545, an increase of 4.84 percent.

Brackett asked for the executive session to discuss a personnel issue he said also drove some of the need for a second position.

After the executive session, the committee table the main Sheriff’s Office budget to Nov. 8, and Doug Baston of Alna asked Brackett to “sharpen (his) pencil” to bring the costs down. Brackett agreed to meet with commissioners Nov. 6 and return with a revised budget Nov. 8.

Also tabled to Nov. 8 were the administration, retiree benefits, contingency, insurance, and most of the reserve budgets.

The other three budgets associated with the Sheriff’s Office – court security, jail transport, and jail assessment – passed easily. Court security costs came down by 23.69 percent; jail transport costs rose by 5.3 percent to accommodate a part-time employee, and there was no change in the Two Bridges Regional Jail assessment.

Mary Ellen Barnes of Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission asked for $36,000 in reserves to do a housing study for the county. Baston, Stephanie Hawke of Boothbay Harbor and Tony Marple of Whitefield objected. Hawke said much of the work for the Boothbay peninsula has already been done, and Marple said Whitefield’s housing is affordable and the main concern there is economic development. Baston said the main issues seem to be on the peninsulas, and are seasonal issues. The committee voted zero dollars for her request.

Earlier, the panel approved $95,717 in requests from community programs including Knox-Lincoln Cooperative Extension, Knox-Lincoln Soil and Water, and Lincoln County Historical Society. The sum was 0.56 percent above last year.

Recycling’s budget of $294,385, up 7.55 percent from the year before, was also approved. The increase in cost is largely due to the lack of a market for mixed plastics and increasingly, mixed paper, according to Tim Richardson, although he said increasing costs for electricity also play a part.

Casey Stevens of the Emergency Management Agency had a drop in costs, largely due to federal grants. His budget was approved for $122,758, 11.98 percent less than last year.

On Oct. 11, the following budgets were approved: County buildings’ request was $393,645, an increase of 0.94 percent; Probate’s budget of $153,445 was approved, an increase of 28.90 percent, largely due to changes in contractual services; Lincoln County Planning Commission requested $270,207, an increase of 29.97 percent, due to changes in personnel and benefits, moving a contracted job onto the payroll as Director Bob Faunce retires; the Office of the Treasurer requested a debt service amount of $848,050, a decrease of 2.84 percent; the District Attorney’s Office requested a budget of $292,311, up 8.93 percent, mostly due to employee benefits; the Deeds Office estimated its 2019 budget at -$171,895, due to anticipated revenues; and Communications requested $1,316,025, an increase of 3.58 percent.