Dear Editor:

A recent article tells of an anonymous $400,000 donation, with a vaguely written explanation suggesting an association with the school industrial job training program and a promise that Superiintendent Kahler will negotiate further donations.

The laws governing the acceptance of gifts frequently require that the funds be deposited in a special account for a designated purpose. The suggestion that the gift is intended for the schools industrial job training qualifies the donation as a conditional gift governed by §5654. Conditional gifts, but that use was only implied, and not very strongly.

The process described in the law begins with a written notice of intent to make a donation addressed to the municipal officers who then raise the issue at a meeting of the legislative body, and are assigned with the task of accepting or rejecting conditional or unconditional gifts in writing.

Upon acceptance, the municipal taxpayers become perpetually responsible for complying with the donation’s conditions, including financing, although the municipal taxpayers have no role in approving or rejecting the donation and its conditions.

If the terms of the conditions include financing maintainance costs in perpetuity, the repeated acceptance of conditional gifts can potentially and progressivly increase the town’s budget financed with property taxes. Those assigned the burden play no role in the decisions made that increase the burden. and the cost of homeownership.

It seems to me that the law should be amended to include a public vote on accepting gifts that generate ongoing costs for municipal taxpayers.

There is no mention in the article of whether or not the $400,000,00 donation will generate additional expenditures. The process outlined in §5654. Conditional gifts was not followed, but there are other laws governing the acceptance of moneythat are usually contigent on the intended use, and establish the agency which formally accepts the gift.

Disclosure: since I am writing about the law, it seems appropriate to state that I am not a lawyer, just an inhabitant of the municipality raising the self-evident words in the law.

Susan M. Andersen

Boothbay Harbor