P1 w11 bridgton budget part 1

By Wayne E. Rivet

Staff Writer

Interim Town Manager Georgiann Fleck expected her first-time preparing Bridgton’s 2025-26 municipal budget to present multiple challenges.

“I knew it would be challenging in these tumultuous economic times. My ultimate goal when considering the budget proposals submitted by the department heads was to be conservative, yet make sure to provide the essentials necessary to operate their departments,” Fleck told the Bridgton Select Board at the start of two-days of budget reviews, March 3-4. “It’s our charge to provide the town with services it requires and desires as cost effectively as possible. Doing so requires balancing of competing needs, future planning, resource allocation and forecasting to the future.”

Upon review of initial requests, Selectman Paul Tworog found his “back of the envelope calculation” — “it is not precise,” he noted — put the budget increase at 6.5%.

“Much of that is due to the school budget,” he pointed out. “I believe, from my estimate, that would be the bottom line impact to property taxes. As we go through things, I would like people to keep that in mind as to where we might be for property taxes.”

Here’s some snapshots from the budget workshops:

• The Select Board supported the recommended 3%Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) increase for non-union employees.

Public Works and Police Department each under three-year contracts, set to expire June 2025. Negotiations taking place now.

Budget Line: Police Department

On the personnel front, Police Chief Phil Jones requested a “market adjustment” regarding his salary, and pitched the idea of hiring a deputy chief and traffic safety officer.

Based on a Maine Municipal Association salary survey for police chiefs and the current New England market, Chief Jones sought a bump in salary to $95,000, which he termed as “a fair and reasonable market standard adjustment.”

“I took into consideration size of the town and workload,” he said. “I would add that in my role as a department head, I am subject to 24/7 call out, responding to police matters if there’s no police officer available to cover the road — that falls on my shoulders. It becomes a unique position.”

Tworog recognized that unlike his officers, Chief Jones is not eligible for overtime, so he was comfortable to increase the salary to $92,000.

Chairman Bob McHatton felt “comfortable” with the 3% COLA (raising the chief’s salary from $86,000 to $88,580), while Select Board member Carmen Lone also supported the 3% since the chief’s position received a market adjustment ($2,279) last year, along with a 4% COLA.

Lone then asked for an explanation regarding the job responsibilities of a deputy chief (salaried at $83,000) and certifications.

Chief Jones said the deputy chief must meet Maine standards to be a full-time officer, but would also assume an administrative role in the chief’s absence. Chief Jones noted that the deputy chief, a non-union position, could take on some of the administrative workload, thus freeing him up to do more “community-based outreach that traditionally I’ve done throughout my career and have been very successful with it.”

The board voted 3-2 (McHatton, Lone against) to increase the chief’s salary to $92,000 (which ultimately is up 7%, the 3% COLA is included within the 7%), while the deputy chief proposal was a no.

One trend in law enforcement is hiring a Traffic Safety officer ($67,882), rather than adding a “regular patrol officer.” Chief Jones explained that the Traffic Safety officer sole job is to address speed complaints and work within the community and schools regarding safe driving education.

Based on data collected through the solar speed signs, “It’s showing us that there are some significant speeding issues that need to be dealt with — some very high speeds at very odd hours,” Chief Jones said. “As much as I want to assign one of my patrol officers to engage in dedicated traffic patrols, the needs for officers to respond to calls for services doesn’t afford me that opportunity. So, this (Traffic Safety officer) begins a discussion. I don’t want to take from the current patrol staffing that we have now. I want to create a position and then assign somebody to that role both for mitigating these speeding problems, which we are seeing nationwide, as well as introducing the educational piece to work on traffic safety.”

Lone felt the focus should be filling the two vacant patrol positions BPD currently has and not adding another position. Currently, the BPD is down two patrol positions.

Looking to improve the BPD with new technology, Chief Jones requested:

• Funding for the e-citation program (a one-time set-up cost, $1,000 per cruiser, $8,000 total). The state requires police departments to submit information regarding citations written by officers. BPD currently uses a Microsoft Excel sheet, which involves manual typing of information that is later electronically sent to the state. The e-citation program enables the officer to enter data into the electronic system and send the report instantaneously.

• Funding for print/scan fingerprint reader (one-time cost for the digital device, $3,400). BPD is one of the only places in the Lake Region area where individuals can be fingerprinted — some due to criminal activity, while others from the public need it done for employment purposes. Instead of rolling a finger over an ink pad, the individual’s finger would be rolled over an electronic scanner.

“It would let you know whether the fingerprint would be acceptable,” Jones said.

The BPD does charge for fingerprinting, between $15 to $25 depending upon if the person is a resident or non-resident. Chief Jones estimated the department does a “couple hundred” fingerprint cards each year.

• Funding to include a license plate reader ($3,000) as part of the digital speed signs the town currently uses.

“Basically, what this would do, is if someone was speeding by that sign on the side of the road, it would record the speed and the license plate reader camera would capture what license plate passed by. It wouldn’t tell me where the person was from. It would just basically take picture and catalog it for us,” Chief Jones explained. “The idea there is that it would help us to basically engage in the opportunity to figure out who our regular speeders are. We’re not issuing punitive tickets for recording that data. We’re simply trying to identify what the problem is, and attacking from a different angle.”

The board sided with the manager’s recommendation to not fund these items.

• Vehicle replacement: Again, looking for a degree of flexibility, Chief Jones proposed to bypass purchasing two new cruisers, but instead buy two pick-up trucks — a move many police departments (Fryeburg PD has one) are making to add some flexibility to their law enforcement vehicle fleet. The trucks would also need to be outfitted to meet law enforcement needs.

Chief Jones says the town has regularly replaced cruisers as the vehicles approach 100,000 miles, which enables the cars to be passed along to other departments for use. The same could happen when the PD truck reaches the end of patrol life, but could be used by Public Works or the Rec Department.

“I like the logic of moving toward a pick-up truck,” Select Board member Carrye Castleman-Ross said. “If we have a pick-up truck and the vehicles tend to stay in the municipality, it has more functionality for another department.”

BPD currently has eight vehicles. With two vacancies existing in the patrol ranks, the Select Board sided with the manager’s recommendation to not purchase vehicles this year.

“I think we should have a truck, but not this year,” McHatton said.

Upcoming segments: Fire Department, Public Works, Rec Department & Ham Complex, outside service agencies along with Bridgton Public Library and Bridgton Community Center.