BEALS — Terry Beal says she will not run again for tax collector or treasurer — not even to keep the town operating.
She has tried to retire for two years, but no one has come forward to succeed her. This time, she insists she is done.
“This is my last year,” Beal said.
With no funds to offer competitive stipends for these key positions, and with what longtime residents describe as a shifting sense of civic duty among their neighbors, members of the community are wondering what will happen at Beals’ 101st annual town meeting April 10, when the votes must be cast.
Amanda Smith sounded the alarm to friends and neighbors on Facebook in a video that has drawn more than 7,600 views — “viral” for a town of about 450 residents. Smith is chair of the Beals Comprehensive Planning Committee.
“The future viability of our town is not looking great,” Smith said in her March 13 video. “Unless we have people willing and qualified to step into these roles, it means our town is without the leadership it needs to legally function.”
Last year, the town offered annual stipends of $5,000 each for the tax collector and treasurer. The elected officials can set their own hours, but unless the town is willing to raise those salaries, Smith said it might be time to discuss deorganizing as a town.
Maine has 429 unorganized townships. In an unorganized territory, the county and state handle municipal duties, making decisions on ordinances and local laws.
“As a Mainer, one of the things I love most is the amount of local control we have as citizens over our own government,” Smith said.
And right now, she warned, “we’re at risk of losing that local control.”
Selectman Daniel F. Davis served as the town’s tax collector for decades — before the town office was built, when residents came to his home to pay taxes and register their cars.
He said a few people have inquired about the positions and met with Terry Beal, but most have backed out.
Davis said he would consider running for the positions if it did not mean having to keep set hours at the Town Office or having to deal with the large online government portals and websites.
“When I was tax collector, you had these books and they had all the vehicles listed and their retail prices,” he said. “You figured out the tax and that was it.”
Davis said he would give the money to the treasurer, who made the deposits and paid the bills.
“A hundred years and we’ve done quite well,” he said. “But we had people back then, over the years, who only did these jobs because of service to the community. It wasn’t a job to earn money or benefits.”
But the town’s changing demographics are making that kind of service harder to sustain.
“The town is aging,” said Patricia Tilton, a community planner with the Sunrise County Economic Council who works on the committee with Smith. “These municipal roles require a lot more time than they used to. There’s more training and reporting. It’s a skill set that an older population doesn’t possess in most instances.”
Kate Dufour said the issue reflects a larger hiring crisis. As the director of advocacy and communications for the Maine Municipal Association, which helps towns manage their legal responsibilities, Dufour said she sees the same struggle as communities try to hire code enforcement officers, firefighters, clerks, treasurers and managers.
“There’s an opportunity to become creative with respect to how they’re going to get the work done,” she said.
Beals might borrow a clerk from a neighboring community, she said, or rethink how it provides services.
Dufour said becoming an unorganized territory is usually a solution of absolute last resort.
“There are many, many steps to go from being an organized community to deorganized,” she said. “It’s a multiyear, multiphase process that involves voter buy‑in.
“It involves the Legislature buying in. It involves developing a system for deorganization. So you can’t just snap your fingers.”
Dufour said she believes most residents do not want to take that path.
“People are proud of their communities. There’s that individualism,” she said. “This is our community. We’ve adopted ordinances. We’ve adopted comprehensive plans. We’ve gone to town meetings. We’ve seen our kids grow and people die.”
Jessica Brockington is a Community Reporting Fellow receiving training through the Journalism New England Career Lab to do civic reporting that provides people across New England with information they need to be engaged in their community.
