News

Gray Town Manager's Report
Tuesday, September 6, 2005
Submitted By Mitchell A. Berkowitz

By-Pass Project Updates:

The Town has received formal notification from the Maine Department of Transportation of several actions under the category "Notice of Layout and Taking" related to the By-Pass project. The Notice relates to land that will be used for drainage and slopes for the By-Pass or approach ways along Rt. 202/4. Additional special rights and temporary construction rights are included in the Notice. The report is on file in the Town Manager's Office. The actions are confirmation the project continues to move towards the bidding phase which we were told would be held late this Fall.

The progress of this project will also be the subject of the Central Corridor Coalition meeting scheduled for Wednesday, September 14 at Stimson Hall starting at 6:30 PM.

Fence Work at the Transfer Station:

After receiving proposals from two Fence installers, the contract for the work to furnish all labor and materials and install the fence along the Northerly boundary line of the Transfer Station was awarded to Main Line Fence. The per foot pricing was as follows:

Main Line Fencing-$18.50 40 weight posts and pipe
E.A. Burns Fencing Inc.-$19.93

The work will be completed this fall by the Contractor.

PWD Front Loader Bids Reviewed:

The Town has received bid proposals from five equipment vendors. The Council and the Staff will review the bids at the September 12 workshop along with the Staff recommendation. We are expecting the Council to concur with the recommendation and award the bid at your September 20 Council meeting.

Joint Leaders Meeting:

The next Joint Leaders meeting was on Wednesday, September 7, 2005 at the MSAD #15 Office Conference Room starting at 7:30 a.m. This has been a meeting of the Chair's of the MSAD, Gray and New Gloucester elected officials, the Superintendent and the Town Managers.

The Tax Rate:

Per state statute, the Tax Assessor, Helen Taylor has completed the valuation work and committed the tax rate for the current fiscal year 2006. Helen will send the certifications to the State as required.

The purpose of this memo is to inform you that the tax rate has been set at $12.40 per $1000 of valuation. This is a reduction of 7.5% over the previous tax rate of $13.40. If the average home is Gray is valued at $190,000 then the savings from last year to this new rate would be $190.00 for the year coming. This savings is due largely to the additional state aid to education funding that reduced the MSAD #15 local appropriation requirements. A word of caution is needed since it has been projected that next fiscal year, 2007, will see a reduced level of the additional state aid for education by as much as two thirds over our current year if previous state calculations were correct.

The tax bills will be arriving to the names and addresses of property tax payers or their agents over the next two weeks. The first installment will be due October 1, 2005 with the second installment due April 1, 2006. The initial tax bill does have two tabs to cover both of these installment payments. There will not be a second billing prior to the April 1, 2006 due date.

Questions regarding the value of one's property should be directed to Ms. Taylor at 657-3112. Tax payers have 185 days within which they may file an appeal with the Town's Board of Assessors.

Finance Committee Meeting:

The next Finance Committee meeting will be Thursday, September 15 at Stimson Hall starting at 7:15 a.m. The first part of the meeting will be with the Town's Auditing firm, Runyon, Kersteen and Ouellette and they will discuss the draft audit.

On a related note, we have placed in each Councilor's mail box a copy of the County Treasurer's report on "Overlapping Debt." This is a reportable item in our annual audit and it indicates that the total County debt is $12,590,000 of which the Town of Gray's portion is $261,968 or 2.08%.

MMA Insurance Pool Refund:

Gray was recently notified by the Pool that it would again receive a refund dividend check from the premiums paid into the pool. The amount of the refund will be $5,268 and it will be recorded as an additional revenue in this year. This reflects a good loss experience over the past year by the Pool. It includes Workers Compensation, Property and Casualty and Unemployment coverage. The dividend is based upon several different years, experienced loss ratios and a formula based upon when a community joined the Pools. Because Gray met the criteria and was a continuing member prior to July 1, 1998, we enjoyed an extra percentage.

Manager's Institute:

The focus of this year's institute was that of "marketing your municipal message." Through a series of workshops, attendees were exposed to several aspects of marketing that included how people learn, determining your target audiences, clarifying the message and the tools used to market.

Respectfully Submitted,
Mitchell A. Berkowitz, Town Manager