April 23, 2026 City Budget Workshop

Disclaimer: The views I express here are my own and should NOT be construed as speaking for the City of Bangor or the City Council of Bangor.

Bangor City Council Kicks Off 2026 Budget Workshops with Focus on Staffing and Safety

The Bangor City Council convened on April 13, 2026, for its inaugural budget workshop of the season, a session marked by department heads asking for new personnel to stabilize city operations and address the growing complexity of municipal services.

City Manager Lear set the stage by introducing a budget designed to provide “baseline” services, emphasizing that many of the requested positions are not “pie in the sky” wishes but essential for basic functionality.

Treasury and Clerk: A Department at the Breaking Point

Council heard from the City Clerk, who oversees the merged Clerk and Treasury office. Despite nearly launching a real-time online payment system that will save hours of manual labor, the City Clerk described an office drowning in volume.

The department handles roughly 145,000 transactions and $108 million annually but remains perpetually two to four weeks behind on mail processing. The City Clerk requested two new positions: one to handle administrative backlog and filing, and another to provide a much-needed cross-trained backup for the Tax Collector. Councilors expressed concern over staff burnout and the real-world impact of delays, citing instances where real estate closings were nearly derailed by the office’s inability to process paperwork in a timely manner.

Legal and IT: Securing the Digital and Physical Infrastructure

The City Solicitor proposed adding an attorney and a part-time legal assistant. The new attorney would focus specifically on a multi-departmental team dedicated to enforcing the vacant building registration ordinance, a move City Manager Lear argued would eventually grow the city’s tax base.

The Information Technology (IT) Director also requested two new roles: a cyber security analyst and a cloud security analyst. Courtney revealed that the city network faces nearly 100,000 cyber attacks daily. While one Councilor suggested combining the roles to save costs, The IT Director warned that the rapid evolution of technology and the heavy reliance of departments like the airport on IT services make separate specialists a necessity for proactive defense.

Emergency Management: A New Strategic Priority

Manager Lear introduced a proposal to create a dedicated Emergency Manager position, removing those duties from the Fire Chief. Lear argued that Bangor’s complexity—featuring a major medical center, an international airport, and a railroad—requires a leader who reports directly to her to ensure disaster preparedness. While Councilors agreed on the need, they questioned whether the county or state should share the $220,000 cost for a position that would likely serve as a regional resource.

Finance and Governance: Modernizing the “Abacus”

In the Finance Department, Lear highlighted a “gutted” institutional memory due to massive staff turnover. She requested a new financial staff position to provide continuity, noting that current employees are forced to use inefficient “workarounds” because the city’s financial software is at its end-of-life. When asked about AI, Lear remarked that staff “aren’t thinking about AI because they’re essentially using an abacus to do their work”.

In a lighter moment of cost-cutting, the Council discussed replacing full meals on meeting nights with pre-packaged snacks, noting that much of the purchased food currently goes to waste.

The Library: “The Last Public Space”

The workshop concluded with Library Director Ben Treat’s request to transition the library’s social worker position—previously funded by ARPA grants—into the operating budget.

Treat presented data showing a 27% increase in “red card” behavior incidents and a rise in substance-related misconduct. He argued that the social worker is vital for “pushing pressure out” of the library by referring unhoused individuals to appropriate service providers. While one Councilor expressed concern about the library becoming a “perpetual service center,” the majority of the Council voiced support for the position as an essential tool for managing the city’s most visible public space until broader homelessness solutions are found.

The City Council will continue its budget deliberations in the coming weeks, with a public hearing on the revaluation process scheduled for June.

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Department Presentations & Requests

1. Clerk & Treasury

• Department Status & Highlights:
  • The tax collector successfully earned her certification.
  • The city is preparing to launch a real-time online payment system for taxes and utilities.
  • This new system will automatically update accounts and calculate interest, which is expected to save staff one to two hours per day.
  • The office processes roughly 145,000 transactions annually, equating to $108 million.
  • Staffing shortages and high foot traffic (135 to 300 people daily) frequently cause the department to fall two to four weeks behind on processing mail.
• Budget Requests:
  • Budget increases are primarily driven by rising postage costs, registry reporting fees, personnel costs, and a new contract for voting tabulators required by the state.
  • The department is requesting two new positions.
  • One requested position is a clerk to handle filing, answer emails, and manage phone calls.
  • The second requested position is a deputy tax collector to cross-train with the current tax collector and process the city’s nearly 2,000 rental car registrations.

2. Assessing

• Department Status & Highlights:
  • The department is fully staffed with four employees and does not require any new positions.
  • They are currently working with KRT on the citywide property reevaluation.
  • The city has entered into a contract for outside legal services to assist with anticipated tax appeals resulting from the reevaluation.
• Budget Requests:
  • The primary request is to expedite the approval of one regular member and two associate members for the Board of Assessment Review so they can be trained for upcoming tax appeals.
  • Budget increases are largely dedicated to employee staff development, aiming for the industry standard of 1% to 2% of the budget.
  • Preliminary valuation numbers from KRT are expected to be presented to the council by June 10th.

3. Legal / City Solicitor

• Department Status & Highlights:
  • The department consists of two full-time attorneys and one 25-hour-per-week legal assistant.
  • The legal team recently led a successful interdepartmental effort to enforce vacant building registrations, which reduced the number of vacant properties.
• Budget Requests:
  • Requesting an additional full-time attorney to focus primarily on the vacant property enforcement team to help increase the residential housing and income tax base.
  • Requesting an additional 20-hour-per-week part-time legal assistant to cover administrative tasks and reduce the need to outsource work.
  • Requesting funding for FOAA software to improve efficiency, accuracy, and records request management.

4. Executive (City Manager, Central Services, IT, HR, Risk & Safety)

• Department Status & Highlights:
  • The executive branch oversees 16 positions across multiple internal service divisions.
  • A major upcoming priority is replacing the city’s end-of-life financial and paper-based HR systems with a modernized enterprise resource system (ERP/HRIS).
• Budget Requests – Central Services (Print Shop):
  • Requesting a flatbed die cutter for $35,000.
  • Requesting a wide format eco printer for $15,000 to produce UV-resistant signs that last significantly longer.
  • Requesting a Print MIS software system replacement for an $8,000 setup cost.
  • These tools will allow the city to bring currently outsourced print jobs in-house. It is estimated that these purchases would “pay for themselves” by way of taxpayer savings within the first few years of purchasing the equipment.
• Budget Requests – IT:
  • Requesting two new roles: a Cyber Security Analyst and a Cloud Security Analyst.
  • The city faces nearly 100,000 cyber incident attempts daily and needs dedicated staff to manage cloud infrastructure and ensure compliance with security audits.
• Budget Requests – Emergency Management:
  • The City Manager introduced a request for a dedicated Emergency Manager, a duty currently assigned to the Fire Chief.
  • The role would handle emergency response planning, table-top exercises, and management of the city’s complex infrastructure.
  • Detailed discussion of this role was deferred to the Fire Department’s upcoming budget presentation.
• Council Budget:
  • It was proposed to discontinue purchasing full meals for standard council meeting nights to save money, switching instead to prepackaged snacks.

5. Finance

• Department Status & Highlights:
  • The department is fully staffed but has experienced massive turnover.
  • Only one employee has been with the department for longer than a year, resulting in a severe loss of institutional knowledge.
  • Catch-up work on financial audits has been slow due to training requirements and legacy software workarounds.
• Budget Requests:
  • Budget increases are primarily driven by standard wages and health insurance.
  • Requesting one new position to provide operational overlap and relieve the single tenured employee, who works heavy overtime to produce the budget.

6. Other Agencies (Debt Service & County Taxes)

• Debt Service: Expected to increase as the city prepares to issue bonds that were previously authorized by the council.
• County Taxes: Bangor’s portion of county taxes is increasing significantly, raising an estimated $911,000 more from local taxpayers. Councilors expressed frustration over the county’s budgeting and discussed bringing the issue to the legislative committee.

7. Bangor Public Library

• Department Status & Highlights:
  • The library is seeing rising attendance due to major events, expanded programming (including a doubled teen program), and regional cardholders.
  • The library successfully brought in over $20,000 in grant funding this year, including $13,000 from the Friends of the Library.
  • The city currently pays for approximately 70% of the library’s budget.
• Budget Requests:
  • The library’s budget shows a steeper increase this year because previous federal surplus funds (such as PPP loans) have been fully spent down.
  • The library is requesting the city continue funding its Social Worker position.
    • This position was previously funded by ARPA money that expires in December.
    • The Social Worker is heavily relied upon to manage a high volume of behavioral incidents and direct unhoused individuals to appropriate external service providers, relieving pressure on the library staff.