Not just Maine: State and local governments spent like drunken sailors during the Bidenomics free money spree as though there were no tomorrow, and now tomorrow has come
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“Who knew?”
‘We’re screwed’: Washington County officials face outcry over proposed 40% budget hike
MACHIAS, Maine — Washington County commissioners presented a 2026 budget that includes a 40% budget hike at a lengthy and packed public hearing Thursday at which residents lambasted officials trying to manage a fiscal crisis.
The proposed budget is due to receive edits from an advisory committee. It undergirds a $11 million bond issue up for a referendum on the Nov. 4 ballot. Overhanging the budget meeting was the possibility that voters, outraged by mismanagement and frustrated by high taxes, might reject the bond the proposed budget is meant to support.
The bond would allow the county to refinance its debts after years of budget mismanagement drained its reserves. After years of spending money without verifying how much was really present in accounts, the budget ran dry earlier this year. That forced the county to take on millions more in debt that comes due in December.
With debts mounting and no cash to repay them, Washington County is on track to run out of money by the new year. Even without a bond, the county is legally obligated to provide a variety of services, making a total shutdown impossible, but the alternative remains unclear.
“We’re screwed,” Commissioner Courtney Hammond said ahead of the meeting.
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The ultimate product will require far more from Down East towns. It means more budget battles between town select boards and their constituents in 2026 as governments weigh raising taxes, cutting services or both to cover county expenditures that would be fixed. A budget advisory Committee is the towns’ only chance to have a say on the county budget that they must pay for, though it remains unclear what may be cut.
“We simply won’t have enough cash to continue to keep the county functioning without doing something else dramatic, and I’m not sure what that is right now,” Eastport City Manager Brian Schuth said ahead of the meeting before being elected to chair the advisory committee.
“We’re screwed,” Commissioner Courtney Hammond said ahead of the meeting.
September 4, 2025:
Washington County asks voters to borrow $11M to cover years of budget mismanagement:
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.
“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 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.