MACHIAS — Members of the Washington County Budget Advisory Committee have dropped a request for legal representation after Sheriff Barry Curtis removed Vice Chairman Ben Edwards from a sweeping public records request.
Committee members voted to ask the Washington County Commission for legal representation last week after Edwards was named in a Freedom of Access Act request for three years worth of emails, texts and other communications.
The same request was made of commissioners David Burns, Billy Howard and Courtney Hammond, and members of the county treasurer’s office. Edwards was the only budget committee member named in the records request, but other committee members believed they would be named in shared communications and wanted to have legal representation.
On Tuesday, Committee Chairman Brian Schuth said Curtis reached out after learning budget committee members had this concern and notified him that Edwards “has been dropped from the FOAA request.”
Schuth said that he and Curtis discussed how they were both acting to protect the institutions they are leading, and while Schuth said he disagreed with the “need to target the Budget Advisory Committee, we are serving in a public capacity and every record we produce is a public record.”
Schuth said he has confidence that committee members and the Sheriff’s Office will be “able to treat each other with respect going forward. There is no longer need to ask for formal representation from lawyers.”
On Oct. 13, attorney David Joyce of Brann & Isaacson filed a FOAA request on behalf of the Sheriff’s Office seeking records for all Sheriff’s Office expenditures, personnel and official vehicle information the county used in its budget process for 2025, 2026 and 2027. The request covers all patrol and investigative units within the Sheriff’s Office, the Washington County Jail, the Regional Communications Center and any personnel under the sheriff’s command.
The same day, attorney Michael Carey from the same firm sent a letter to commissioners, Schuth and budget committee members asserting that commissioners failed to follow state law when they forwarded a draft budget to the advisory committee without first voting on their own budget estimate. According to Carey, the budget committee’s work since Sept. 15 is “only preliminary because the Washington County Commission has not yet fulfilled its legal responsibility to begin the budget development process.”
According to Washington County Chief Deputy Michael Crabtree, legal fees for the Sheriff’s Office are being paid by the Maine Sheriff’s Association.
In response to Carey’s letter, the commission’s attorney, Jonathan Pottle, who was hired in September to help reorganize county government and sort out growing disagreements among county employees, sent a letter to the commissioners on Monday advising them to hold a confirmatory vote on the budget estimate to satisfy the budget committee’s concerns.
According to Pottle, “from a review of county records, it is clear on September 10, 2026, the commissioners provided the 2027 budget estimate to the Budget Advisory Committee,” noting commissioners held budget workshops leading to an advertised public hearing on Sept. 10, and the minutes of that meeting “plainly state all three commissioners were present, along with the Budget Advisory Committee members listed, and that the 2027 budget estimate, referred to as the 2027 budget proposal, was being turned over to the Budget Advisory Committee to conduct its process.”
Pottle also noted that members of the budget committee were each given three-ring notebooks containing the budget estimate at that meeting, so even “in the absence of a distinct recorded submission vote,” taken together “this all demonstrates the commissioners submitted a 2027 budget estimate to the Budget Advisory Committee” on Sept. 10. Further, he notes, the budget document is “not described as a staff draft or someone else’s draft,” and should be considered the commissioners’ draft.
But there is a note on the top right of the summary page that reads, “8/19/2026 – DRAFT budget,” and commissioners have said several times that the document reflects department head requests in full since no cuts were approved by commissioners.
Burns had expressed frustration in August when he couldn’t convince Howard or Hammond to support what he called “nickel-and-dime” cuts to the budget, “but without that I guess we have to send the budget through.”
Following the Sept. 10 public hearing and meeting with budget committee members, Burns and Howard sent individual memos to the budget committee with suggested cuts, most of which were aimed at the Sheriff’s Office and some of which had been discussed but not approved by the full commission.
These memos are one of the key points in Carey’s letter asserting improper procedure, writing that the memos “do not replace the county commission’s statutory duty to take action to start the budget process.”
The untouched draft budget represents $17.1 million in spending, a $3.7 million, or 27.6 percent, increase over last year’s final budget.
Without cuts, property taxes must cover $15 million of that total, which is $3.4 million more than last year.
Pottle’s letter acknowledges that Sheriff Curtis and others have questioned whether the budget committee actually has a submitted budget estimate for 2027, and has recommended commissioners conduct a confirmatory vote when they meet on Wednesday, Oct. 28, “to resolve any uncertainty that may exist.”
That vote, Pottle advises, should identify the 2027 budget estimate notebook and confirm that it was given to budget committee members on Sept. 10 as commissioners’ 2027 budget estimate. He further advised Wednesday’s minutes should reflect the confirmatory vote, and a copy of the budget estimate notebook should be attached to those minutes.
Pottle also noted in his letter that he was aware of concerns raised about whether the commissioners must “approve” the 2027 budget estimate when submitting it for review by the budget committee. “The answer is ‘no,’” he wrote, “because all the statute requires is submission of a budget estimate” for the coming year no later than 90 days before the end of the county’s fiscal year.
The budget committee must then review the estimate and submit its recommendations back to commissioners at least 45 days before year-end, which is Nov. 16.
Commissioners and budget committee members will then hold an informational meeting with the county’s legislative delegation, and commissioners must act on the budget at least 15 days before the end of the fiscal year. If they want to make any changes to the budget committee’s recommendations, they must hold a joint meeting with the budget committee to negotiate those changes.
If commissioners fail to approve the negotiated budget, state law authorizes the budget committee to adopt a final budget. If a budget is not approved by Jan. 1, the county will run on an interim budget capped at 80 percent of the 2026 budget until adopting a new one.
The budget committee will next meet on Tuesday, which is Election Day, and some members questioned whether they could start making recommendations since the budget process has been challenged.
“Well, presumably, if we have a budget we would begin making decisions at that meeting,” Schuth said, provided the commission takes a confirmatory vote as advised.
He said the committee could, if members wanted, “dig in our heels on this and try to compel behavior, but we don’t do so by ceasing to do our job. You see that?”
He suggested the committee continue its work, acknowledging “it’ll be messy at first, but let’s try to put it all together and then we can hold the final recommendation at that point, if we want to. Let’s do the work.”
On Tuesday, the committee completed its review of the last of the department requests, including a $1.9 million estimated increase in employee benefits, which includes increases in health insurance, paid family leave and the county’s match share of federal insurance contributions, or FICA, and employee IRAs.
The FICA increase is estimated at $620,795, or $301,996 year over year, which Finance Director Jenny Windsor explained is tied to salaries, including overtime. “When you increase overtime FICA is going to increase,” she said.
The budget committee also reviewed increased liability and Workers Compensation insurance, both of which the county purchases through the Maine Municipal Association, which are estimated to climb to $413,168, or 35.46 percent more than the current year.
Windsor pointed out that many of the line items the committee has reviewed have changed since the work began on Sept. 15, including a projected $400,000 savings in health insurance, bringing that cost down to $2.2 million. There have been changes elsewhere, which she has kept note of during the committee’s six meetings to date.
Committee member Martha Howell, who is a selectperson in Lubec, asked whether the committee should expect to see a revised budget with those updated figures for each of their notebooks.
“I’ve asked for that,” Schuth said, but if they don’t get that he said he would ask Windsor to be prepared to provide updates, including updated year-to-date expenditures since the budget was drafted in August and notes spending as of Aug. 19.
Schuth said he’d like to see a new version of the budget, incorporating any changes and updates from the finance department, by Monday at the latest.
“Should the commissioners choose to adopt a significantly different budget” when they meet Wednesday, Schuth said, “of course we hope that those necessary changes will be incorporated in whatever they provide.”
