LIVERMORE — Selectpersons on Tuesday night agreed to hold a special meeting at 6 p.m. Oct. 6, if representatives from Ameriprise and Maine Public Employee Retirement System can attend to explain retirement plans for town employees.
Each representative would be scheduled for a different time to review their program and answer questions.
Five applications have been received for the deputy town clerk position but none for town clerk, Administrative Assistant Aaron Miller said. At the Sept. 13 meeting it was announced Town Clerk Renda Guild and Deputy Town Clerk Jean Tardif would retire Jan. 3, 2023.
Selectpersons agreed Miller should obtain the pay scales for those positions in other towns to use during the hiring process.
Later in the meeting, Miller said the town offers employees a retirement plan through Ameriprise. The town and employee each contribute 3% of their salary, he noted.
With many municipal employees using the MainePERS system, Miller asked if the town should offer that retirement option to attract applicants. He said he had spoken with someone at Ameriprise.
“There’s just so many details to this,” he noted. With MainePERS the deal breaker is you can’t offer a simple IRA, what the town offers through Ameriprise, he added.
“I would propose you get one (representative) from each to come in and talk with you about these things,” Miller said. He thought it best to have more people at the meeting because he might not think of all the questions to ask. “I don’t know enough about it,” he added.
Employees are encouraged to attend the meeting to have their questions answered.
More information is needed, Selectperson Chairman Mark Chretien said.
It is hard for someone who has been with MainePERS for any length of time to go to a different retirement system, Selectperson Scott Richmond said.
In other business, selectpersons voted to approve the 2022-2023 General Assistance Overall Maximums as set by the state. The GA Maximums, which set the maximum amount a person can earn monthy, have to be approved annually.
“It’s a formality, you have to do this,” Miller said. Selectpersons can amend the amounts, establish their own maximums, he noted. “Typically towns go with the state,” he added.
For a one-person household in the greater Lewiston/Auburn Metropolitan area, the maximum that can be earned per month is $795, according to Appendix A prepared by Maine Municipal Association.
“So, if they make more than that, they are over the maximum meaning they would not qualify for General Assistance,” Miller said before the vote.
Selectpersons also approved a tax abatement of $45 for $2,850 in valuation for the 2022-2023 tax year for Stephen and Shirley McNear. After review of their property at 35 Bartlett Road the acreage was corrected to reflect 2.90 acres.
A supplemental assessment of $404,760 in valuation, which means $6,476.16 in property taxes, was approved for Haley Bubier and Sean Ridge at 100 Butter Hill Road after it was determined their new home and parcel was inadvertently omitted from the most recent tax commitment.
The Bubier-Ridge home and parcel was assessed to Dwinald and Merry Bubier at 104 Butter Hill Road.
The Bubiers were granted a tax abatement of $6,323.63 on a valuation of $395,227 after their granddaughter’s new home and 1-acre lot it sits on were transferred from the Bubiers to Haley Bubier and Sean Ridge.
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