AUBURN — As a member of the lowest paid county governing board in Maine, Commissioner Brian Ames of Lewiston is asking for a raise for himself and his Androscoggin County Commission colleagues.
Ames has sent a letter to members of the county budget committee asking it to review the commissioners’ salaries. Ames included in his letter a list of salaries paid by each county.
Androscoggin commissioners currently are paid $4,000 annually, while the board chairman receives an additional $500. Their pay has not increased since 2017.
At the opposite end of the scale, commissioners from Penobscot County, which includes Bangor, received $16,244.80 in 2023 — four times the pay of Androscoggin County. Waldo County was a close second at $16,209.55.
Of Maine’s 16 counties, 12 pay their commissioners at least $9,000.
Locally, Oxford County pays its three commissioners $12,054, while Franklin County’s three commissioners are paid $12,000.
Androscoggin, however, has more commissioners than any other county. Most counties have just three commissioners, while Androscoggin has seven. The only other counties with more than three commissioners are Cumberland, Somerset and York with five apiece.
Androscoggin also had just three commissioners before 2015 when the new charter took effect, changing the number to seven and also adding the position of a county administrator.
Because of the extra commissioners plus the presence of an administrator to run the county, the budget committee proposed cutting the salaries from $7,200 to $3,000, keeping the pool of money to pay the commissioners salaries the same.
Commissioners objected, voting to raise their own salaries to $5,000, resulting in a long and expensive lawsuit between the commissioners and 12 of the 14 municipalities in Androscoggin County over who had final say over the county budget. In the end, the commissioners have the final say on the budget in all areas except their own salaries.
In 2017, the budget committee set the commissioners’ salaries at $4,000.
According to the county charter, salaries of elected county officials cannot be raised without “the approval of a majority plus one vote of the full budget committee.” That means a minimum of nine members of the 14-member budget committee must approve any salary increase for it to be included in the budget.
At only one of the three budget committee meetings held to discuss the 2024 county budget to date has nine or more members been in attendance.
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