By Lucas Knowles

Staff Writer

    Cumberland County Commissioners will soon be voting
on the next county budget, a budget whose increase is primarily driven
by the costs of mental health services at the Cumberland County Jail.

    The Cumberland County Budget Advisory Committee
first began reviewing budget proposal this past fall. Now that a series
of public hearings on the budget has concluded, the last of which was
Dec. 4 in Cape Elizabeth, county commissioners will vote on the
proposal at their next meeting.

    The total proposed budget is $30,773,045, an
increase of $963,179. The county tax increase would be 4.99 percent if
the budget were approved as proposed.

    County Manager Peter Crichton said much of the
increase in the county budget is being driven by medical and housing
costs at the Cumberland County jail for inmates and that the state’s
mental health system, along with an increasing inmate population, is to
blame.

    “The jail is becoming more like a mental health
institution,” Crichton said. “That is a direct result of the mental
health system in Maine…jails are becoming the last resort.”

    According to Crichton, when he began his stint as
county manager eight years ago, less than $700,000 a year was spent on
inmate medical costs. That amount has since jumped to more than $2.5
million a year.

    More than 500 inmates are currently being housed at
the Cumberland County Jail, many of which are currently on psychotropic
medications.

    Crichton said there is a lack of funding for county
jails and county government across the board in Maine. In a letter to
the public about the proposed county budget, Crichton wrote “our broken
mental health system in Maine and the lack of jail funding places an
unfair tax burden squarely on the backs of Cumberland County
taxpayers…the funding by state government for the jail has gone up only
a fraction of the costs.”

    Originally, Crichton recommended that the Budget
Advisory Committee not fill any of the nine new positions that were
requested, that the county’s merit pay program be suspended and that
training for jail and law enforcement staff be flat funded.

    The committee decided to add money for a detective
sergeant position at the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office and an
additional dispatcher for the county communications center.

    Budget Advisory Committee Chairman Shawn Babine, a
Scarborough town councilor, said the focus on the next county budget
was not on eliminating money or programs, but keeping increases to as
small an amount as possible.

    “The focus was not on cutting, but it was on reducing the amount of increase,” Babine said.

    Babine said the bulk of the budget increase was
devoted to expenses at the jail and cost of living increases for county
employees.

    Both Babine and Crichton said that county taxpayers,
along with officials in the county’s municipalities should keep in mind
what the benefits of county government are.

    “As communities become more regionalized, they will
begin to see county government as more of an alternative,” Babine said.
“County government is proof that partnerships do work.”

    “County government is important because of the
services it provides,” Crichton said. “I have seen both municipal and
county government up close and county government is local government on
a regional scale.

    Crichton said the increase in the county’s budget is
relatively small for taxpayers throughout the county because of the
ability to spread the increase out over all municipalities in
Cumberland County.