Penobscot County leaders to present $35M budget at public hearing

By Kasey Turman, Bangor Daily News Staff

Penobscot County’s new proposed $35.3 million budget is down more than $1 million from its initial version and will next head to a public hearing.

The Penobscot County Commissioners found more than $850,000 in cuts for the 2026 proposed budget, along with $150,000 in additional revenue.

The budget will advance to a public hearing on Dec. 23, and commissioners may make additional changes before the end of the year, when the budget has to be finalized. The commissioners didn’t vote to finalize the budget during their Wednesday meeting.

The lower budget comes after an advisory committee approved a $35.1 million budget last week, $1 million lower than what the commissioners’ proposed amount. With the committee not approving individual departments, commissioners Andre Cushing, Dave Marshall and Dan Tremble were tasked with finding specific cuts to get to that figure.

The initial budget saw a large increase from spending in 2025, mostly due to a $3.5 million shortfall as of the beginning of the year. The shortfall began in 2021 when state funding for the Penobscot County Jail stagnated and unbalanced county costs created a $7.1 million budget crisis.

Cuts from 11 departments, including the jail, summed to roughly $860,000. More than $430,000 came from 10 county departments while more than $425,000 was taken out of the jail budget.

An additional $150,000 of revenue was included from the registry of deeds.

The only reductions of more than $100,000 came from zeroing out all funding to building improvements and slashing the jail’s boarding from 65 inmates to roughly 60.

The cuts themselves did not add up to the committee’s wishes of $1 million less in spending, but the commissioners said it was as close as they were going to get for now.

“Unfortunately, it’s the 11th hour here and we need to pass the budget. I think the budget committee did the easy thing. They just picked a number out of the air and said ‘cut $1 million.’ I think we made an effort to get there. I think we may be able to do more,” Tremble said.

A possible hiring freeze, changing capital expenditures, limiting the county’s credit card use and not paying for out-of-state travel were the four changes Tremble said he might bring to discussions later this year.

The commissioners passed every department change unanimously to overrule the committee’s approved budget and to not be strictly held to the motion enacting $1 million in cuts.

Commissioners spoke about many of the changes at a budget workshop yesterday, which streamlined today’s meeting. The most discussion was in regard to donating funds to local organizations.

Marshall and Tremble disagreed at the December budget meeting and yesterday’s workshop on whether the county should donate to organizations.

The organizations are worthy of funding, Marshall said, but it’s not the job of the county to donate to them.

“It’s not my job to collect tax money from the public and then turn around and make it a donation to an organization. I think primarily our job is to fund the operation of county government,” he said.

Many of the organizations have received funding for decades, Tremble said.

Tremble and Marshall agreed to cut donations to the Bangor Shelter, Bangor Area Recovery Network and Together Place but to replace them with monies from the opioid settlement funds.

Commissioners previously said the change will not affect any funding the organizations previously applied for through the Opioid Advisory Committee. The organizations receive a collective $45,000 from the county.

Tremble repeated the sentiment commissioners shared at a November meeting by saying they aren’t restricted by the application process to give out opioid funds and can decide to use them at their discretion as long as they meet the requirements to use the monies.

“We put together a committee, but at the end of the day I think we can decide how to spend the opioid funds,” Tremble said.