LEWISTON — City officials hope some conflicting state laws could bring the Maine Attorney General’s Office into the controversy surrounding salaries for the Androscoggin County Commission.
City Councilor Michael Lachance, a member of the Androscoggin County Budget Committee, said he found state rules that put limits on county charters.
City Administrator Ed Barrett said those rules may conflict with the Androscoggin County Charter.
“There is a provision in state law that seems to say that if you adopt a charter, you still have to give the Budget Committee final approval,” Barrett said. “That raises some issues of whether state law trumps what is said in the charter.”
The County Commission voted in November to reinstate a number of cuts the Budget Committee approved. Those included cuts to commissioners’ salary and benefits.
Barrett said that how much commissioners are paid is not the question. How commissioners made their decision is the problem.
“I think the issue of how much commissioners are paid is not the issue we are dealing with here,” Barrett said. “What we are dealing with is how the county budget gets set and how the salaries are decided.”
Budget Committee members voted to cut commissioners’ annual salaries from $7,200 per commissioner to $3,000. The committee also did away with health insurance coverage for commissioners and their families.
Commissioners voted in November to set their base salary at $5,000 and to fund individual health and dental coverage for commissioners worth about $8,400 per commissioner.
They also added back some budget line items that the Budget Committee cut by a super majority.
All told, the commissioners budget was $89,000 higher. Lewiston’s share of that is about $25,000, Barrett said.
“Do we want to fight about that amount or do we want to put our efforts into a fix going forward?” Barrett said.
That could mean working with neighboring communities, commissioners and members of the Budget Committee and Charter Commission.
Lewiston Mayor Robert Macdonald said he hoped the potential conflict with state law could bring the Attorney General’s Office into the matter. Members of the Budget Committee asked the AG’s office to intervene, but the state so far has declined.
City Councilor Mark Cayer said he favored sitting down with the interested parties.
“I don’t think there has been malice,” Cayer said. “I don’t think their intention was to do anything wrong. They truly believe they are not doing anything wrong.”
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