Penobscot County officials send an ‘urgent request’ for funding to Janet Mills

By Kasey Turman, Bangor Daily News Staff

Penobscot County officials sent a letter to Gov. Janet Mills requesting $8 million from the state to recoup the county’s depleted finances.

The letter, sent on Feb. 19 and signed by County Administrator Blair Tinkham, County Treasure Glenn Mower and Commissioners Andre Cushing, Dave Marshall and Dan Tremble, requests the $8 million from the state’s rainy-day fund to “address immediate infrastructure needs, stabilize our financial position, and maintain the level of public safety and service our residents expect and deserve,” the letter reads.

Penobscot County officials have previously discussed requesting money from Maine’s roughly $1 billion rainy day fund for county operations, but the letter sent is the first signed action delivered.

Penobscot County’s undesignated funds have been spent down to the point of a roughly $7 million deficit to pay for the Penobscot County Jail, which has not been fully funded in county budgets since 2021. The county has been spending roughly $2 million a year funding jail operations and boarding costs that county commissioners say would have been avoided with additional state funding.

In the letter, the deficit is described as an “unprecedented fiscal challenge that threatens our ability to maintain public safety and essential services.”

Despite the funding gap starting with the county’s 2021 budget, the letter to Mills said “over the past three years, the County has incurred significant un-forecasted expenses related to jail boarding and critical infrastructure repairs, costs that were beyond our control and impossible to anticipate.”

Along with the funding request, county commissioners asked for a meeting with Mills at 1 p.m. on Feb. 25, Tinkham said. The request for a meeting is not reflected in the letter.

The governor’s office is “aware of the meeting request, and we are working on scheduling,” spokesperson Anthony Ronzio said.

During the county’s 2026 budget process, county commissioners repeatedly said the state should have been increasing its funding for jails to keep up with rising costs.

“The problem is not going to be solved until the state steps up and funds the jails the way that it’s supposed to be funding them. We desperately need a new facility, but that’s not going to cure our problem,” Tremble said when the county passed its 2026 budget on Dec. 31, 2025.

The letter reflects the grievances commissioners have with the state’s funding, saying that the lack of funding is at the center of the county’s deficit.

“Despite these escalating costs, Penobscot County has received no projected relief from the State, forcing us to deplete all reserve funds. This depletion has left us unable to address urgent safety concerns within our facilities and has compromised our ability to maintain critical infrastructure,” the letter reads.

The county’s 2026 budget allocates $16.4 million in funding to the jail.

The $8 million request is not just to cover the funds lost in the last five years, but also to “address immediate infrastructure needs, stabilize our financial position, and maintain the level of public safety and service our residents expect and deserve,” according to the letter.

Penobscot County has not received a response from the Governor’s office as of Feb. 19, Tinkham said.