7994-R1_MechanicFalls_20-21_AnnualReport_Text_4C_Web

TOWN MANAGER

March 8, 2022

To the citizens of Mechanic Falls:

First, let me express to you all, how happy I am to be your Town Manager. Since joining your town in September of last year, I have come to know and appreciate the quality of personnel that serves you every day. We have good people, doing good things. I also appreciate and have tremendous respect for our dedicated councilors. Not only do they work well together, but always have the best interest of the town in mind. I can report to you that the state of the Town of Mechanic Falls is strong. While finishing touches are being put on the annual audit report, a sneak peak, has the Town’s Undesignated Fund balance at just under 1.7 million dollars. Annual Debt Service comes in at just under $200,000 and, the town currently has over a million dollars set aside in various Reserve Accounts. From a financial perspective, my only concern moving forward is how the town funds the Capital Budget. Currently, in my opinion, we rely way too much on the use of surplus dollars to fund these accounts, with just a small amount coming from the taxpayer. My concern is what would happen if in some year there were no surplus dollars. Would the town go without a Capital Budget? Or drastically increase the mil rate? To solve this problem, I intend to bring forward a series of incremental taxpayer increases over the next several years with the goal to eventually fund this budget with tax dollars. Then, when we have surpluses, we can use those dollars for the really big ticket items including fire trucks, roads and more. By self-funding these big-ticket purchases, instead of taking out loans and paying interest, we will save the taxpayer even more money in the long term. Things to look forward to this year include our LED Streetlight project, which when completed in late summer will save the town as estimated 78% of the current costs. The Council has approved using ARPA dollars to pay for the project. The projected savings over the next 20 years comes in at over $335,000. In addition, early prep work for the upcoming town wide revaluation will begin later this year with the bulk of the project taking place in 2023

While over the past several months I have had the opportunity to meet with many of you… yet, there are still plenty of folks with whom I have not had the pleasure to meet. Please know that I have an open-door policy. I will meet with anyone, anytime, to discuss any topic concerning the town. In conclusion, from finances, to staff and council, the state of the Town of Mechanic Falls is strong. I look forward to the challenges and opportunities ahead.

Sincerely,

Vic Hodgkins

Town Manager

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