The Lincoln County Budget Committee approved the budgets for several departments Oct. 12. Due to changes in how the county organized the budget – for instance, putting each department’s share of capital spending and commodities such as heating oil in their own budgets instead of in a general county one – the budget numbers fluctuated from last year. Overall, the proposed budget increased 1.67 percent.

Last year, the county budget increased by 1.52 percent.

The budgets approved Oct. 12 were for buildings, probate, planning, debt Service, the District Attorney’s Office, deeds, communications, administration, retiree benefits, contingency accounts and insurance. All except the retiree benefits’ 6-2 approval were unanimous. Ben Rines and Stephanie Hawke voting against the retiree benefits proposal.

The issue of retiree medical benefits date to when the county could not offer the kinds of salaries the private sector could, County Administrator Carrie Kipfer said. It is a sensitive labor issue, because a lot of people until relatively recently accepted employment in Lincoln County due to its superior benefits rather than salaries, although, Kipfer said, that’s changing. “We’ve looked at this issue before, but it’s a difficult change to make. Employees are vested at 15 years for retiree benefits, and that might be one area we could look at changing.”

Any change will happen slowly, because it will affect new hires only and no changes have been agreed to yet. The longevity of county employees’ tenure is quite high and turnover, quite low. Employees pay 10 percent toward retiree insurance. Right now, the net cost is $85,610, up $7,783 from last year. The total cost of the program is about 10 percent of the county budget, and that cost is expected to rise as more long-term employees retire.

Another issue was the amount of reserves. The auditors have strongly urged the county to hold 180 days of expenses in reserve funds; the county is holding about half of that currently, but the reserves have increased since Michelle Cearbaugh took over as finance director and made changes to cash handling practices.

In the District Attorney’s Office, one budget item was expected to grow. Until recently, unless a defendant went to trial, the county did not copy all the information the defendant needed for discovery, which includes police reports and witness statements. Lincoln County and the other three the office covers – Sagadahoc, Knox, and Waldo – have been told this practice does not meet judiciary rules, and so now all defendants must receive discovery documents. DA Jon Liberman said the cost of the copying is expected to be $1,700 this year, but he is hopeful a digital system will cut down on most of the costs next year.

Mary Ellen Barnes of Lincoln County Regional Planning was asked what the planning office does and how much money it generates a year. She pointed to grant funding for economic development, workshops and other activities which are critical needs especially for towns without a planner. “We held a workshop on broadband access,” she said. “Everything we are hearing from the towns suggests this is an issue that is affecting their economic development. But there is no real way to quantify how much economic development one of these workshops can bring to a community or the county.”

The next county budget work session is at 6 p.m. Oct. 26 at the Communications Office at the county courthouse complex in Wiscasset.