Advocacy on the road - Regional Meetings with Local Government

The Regional Meetings Podcast Episode:
At the taping of this podcast MMA's Advocacy Team had conducted 10 regional meetings with municipal and county officials around the state to discuss pressures on local government, possible solutions and meet with candidates for State office to understand better the needs of local government. 

From Presque Isle to Alfred, some issues are the same with a significant difference in the ability for local government to address them. It is abundantly clear that not all communities have access to regional planning resources, grant writers, or even full time staff but are using what few tools they have to try to answer the biggest challenges facing local government. 

What can legislators do better to understand capacity? Can they work more closely with local government to provide tools not rules and achieve their goals?

One thing is certain, all legislators need local government to deliver on their most desired policies and many legislators need to understand that efforts with a view from York County  have more available resources than Franklin or Aroostook County but are no less important to those communities and the people they serve. 

Hopefully, these local conversations will generate a lot more local voices providing comments on policy in Augusta! 

The conversations and interactions between local and state government leaders are more important than ever and we appreciate the time you took to make these recent conversations meaningful. Whether it’s tax policy, education funding, mandates or public safety, local contributions only strengthen the discussions and help to inform the decisions being made in Augusta. 

In the following months, MMA’s Legislative Policy Committee (LPC) and Advocacy Team will be shaping the association’s legislative platform. Your local LPC members are a valuable resource for both giving and receiving information. Count on them when you need information about a bill the LPC has up for debate, or if you have information about how a measure will impact your community.

Find the full list of LPC members HERE 

Learn more about MMA’s 5-Member Advocacy Team HERE 

Additional resources can be found at the Advocacy & Communications tab on MMA’s website. There you can access past editions of the Maine Town & City magazine, read the latest issues of the Legislative Bulletin, or stream the latest episode of the Potholes & Politics podcast.  If you would like to receive an electronic version of the Legislative Bulletin, Maine Town & City magazine or subscribe to the monthly e-newsletter please contact MMA’s Personify database team at: PersonifyRequests@memun.org . 

Transcript

Regional Meeting Podcast

 [00:00:00] 

Rebecca Graham: Welcome, everyone, to Potholes and Politics, the long delayed episode. Highly anticipated, anxiously awaited, long overdue for the long suffering crew. Here with you today are your co hosts. I'm Rebecca Graham, also known as Grahambo. And I'm Rebecca Lambert, also known as Lambo.

Amanda: And I am Amanda Campbell, also known as Cambo. Woohoo! What up, ladies? We have been busy on a limited tour of the states. Vast.

Rebecca Graham: Different regions, holding regional meetings with municipal officials, county officials, state partners, and candidates for the legislature all over the state. And I think we have now [00:01:00] completed. What was our eighth, ninth, the other night. With. Four more on tap and a lot of requests to continue doing this with not a lot of capacity to do it, but nothing prevents regional meetings from happening with those regional partners, in future.

Rebecca Graham: Just maybe a lift that we're not going to be able to sustain particularly because we are about to enter our legislative session. I was done. Yeah, I was just gonna do that.

Rebecca Graham: So we started off at all these different locations all over the state. The messaging is very similar. There is a lot of similarities, but also a lot of difference I found in both understanding of some of those pressures, capacity to address some of those pressures, and , even some solutions that were presented that might be achievable.

Rebecca Graham: We started off in September and [00:02:00] Lincoln and, Lincoln County with a Saginaw Lincoln County team focus and then that same week we went to Knox and Waldo and did a combined meeting and those two were very different, but the mid coast in general had some very common pressures, particularly around housing and also public safety.

Rebecca Graham: Do you thinking back to those September feels like decades ago but. Really wasn't that long ago, just feel like we've done a lot of work since. 

Rebecca Graham: Amanda, these are home counties for us. So were there any interesting takeaways for you? I the biggest takeaway, I think, just in general I was pleasantly surprised that candidates actually showed up. I didn't really anticipate that they would want to participate in something like this.

Amanda: So it was nice to have that. And we've had candidates at every. Session. Um, the local ones to us, the SAG County Lincoln County one again was the first one. And it was just, it was interesting to hear the back and forth between the candidates that were there and the municipal representatives that [00:03:00] were there.

Amanda: It was nice to be able to see productive dialogue happening and not necessarily around anything specific, but that's just been one of my key takeaways that it seems like the it. It's been more positive than I anticipated it would be. Yeah, the tone is very, definitely different outside of session.

Rebecca Graham: I think with our elected representatives than it is during session. And as we know, we're not exactly pleasant to be around either when we're drinking from a fire hose and as are they, I think one of the interesting things that came out of those two were the differences between what was looming for them.

Rebecca Graham: But the detail in which some of the folks at the municipal level understood legislation that had passed and some of the needs, particularly around the senior stabilization program and being able to articulate that to candidates that didn't necessarily have that background, didn't understand what happened with that, why the state didn't want to continue with that.

Rebecca Graham: And it's then effect upon their residents. So one of the [00:04:00] first solutions that we heard from a municipal official is to, up an increase that return that seniors that are means tested can receive through the filing of their income taxes annually, which is one of those programs that is a challenge because most of the people that qualify for that are not required to file taxes.

Rebecca Graham: And it wasn't until COVID and that requirement for some of those reimbursements where they started getting used to filing taxes, even though they knew that they weren't going to have to pay anything, it enabled them to receive. Direct payments from the government for those programs, and that's the same thing with the senior property tax circuit breaker program.

Rebecca Graham: I'm not sure what the official name is I remember it used to be like a circuit breaker but it doesn't only apply to seniors. There's just a greater level that applies to seniors that also applies to families and individuals that are paying a larger portion of their rent. That's something that through their filing of main taxes, they receive credit [00:05:00] for, and in the cases of someone who doesn't need to file, they can get a direct payment for up to, I believe it's 2, 000 of what they pay in property taxes back.

Rebecca Graham: Based upon those means testings, which can't happen at the municipal level, that has to happen at a main revenue service level. That's a skill set and a whole bunch of formulas that municipal officials don't have handy. And that property tax fairness credit is what they expanded and then also the main revenue and the state were really pushing municipalities to educate the residents on the deferral program as well at the state level.

Rebecca Graham: In exchange for doing away with and repealing the stabilization program that just wasn't just couldn't be funded. Just great idea and concept, but the program was the exchange for that. The education piece is something that municipalities think are feeling compelled to do, but they are not that [00:06:00] education piece wasn't, their obligation necessarily.

Rebecca Graham: No, of course not do that but it is of avail to seniors through a number of different programs. Usually there are like senior spectrum and for example, those types of programs that do a lot of senior events in counties. They're often able to also work through that tax and filing of taxes for free for seniors as well.

Rebecca Graham: But one of the other pieces that one of the assessors brought up was the need to increase the homestead exemption up to, he was suggesting 75, 000, which would make a real difference for individuals who have seen an inflation in the value of their property. That is through no fault of their own but simply existing in a location during an insane market grab for the properties around them.

Rebecca Graham: It would mean some real tax relief 75, 000 off their assessed value, which I believe is [00:07:00] provided back to the community at a specific rate or what are we at currently because I know that there were two programs that. The homestead is 76 percent reimbursement. but , it's also driven by your ratio.

Rebecca Graham: Your assessment ratio correct. So you get 76 percent of your homesteads. If you are at the hundred percent ratio. And you The individual, if you're at the 100 percent ratio, actually gets the full value of their homestead in that exemption. Correct. Which they don't get if you don't assess at the 100 percent of the value that the state decides is the valuation for your community.

Rebecca Graham: Correct. So that's also a challenge. But it would be a uniform way of increasing the benefit for permanent residents and folks on fixed income with , lower property values, and then folks that have come in and paid astronomical prices and have higher property values, they would still receive the same benefit, but it's going to mean less of an impact on their tax assessment.

Rebecca Graham: In other words, it would impact the people who are who it was intended to impact rather than everybody [00:08:00] across the board. A hundred percent. Of everyone across the board that claims that they are permanent residents would get that benefit, but it would work itself out so that the individual , in a mobile home, for instance, might not have any property tax, because they might not their assessed value might not meet that 75, 000 threshold but.

Rebecca Graham: the person on the same, in the same neighborhood who has an oceanfront property and paid 1. 2 million would also receive that, but it means less to their tax assessment than it would necessarily to them. So it has a bigger impact.

Rebecca Graham: The people that doesn't help are those long timers who have that oceanfront property. smaller home that's been in their families for generations and through no fault of their own in the market has increased exponentially in value and increased their taxes again through no fault of their own.

Rebecca Graham: And yeah, anything is going to help, but just because their house is [00:09:00] valued as much as the mansion next door, it doesn't mean that they can afford the taxes as easily as the neighbor next door. Yeah. And that's why property tax and relying on property tax to deliver The vast majority of government services in the state is a really regressive and painful way to be funding things that, that the state cares about, I know that there's usually a breakdown as to how much of that comes from sales and income tax and how much of it comes from property tax. So I've been doing a big lots of financial review. I've just finished in putting all of the 2022 town audit financial information into a really big spreadsheet.

Rebecca Graham: That was part of a transfer in how we collect our fiscal data just because municipalities are so overwhelmed that they either can't or don't or whatever, with any sort of surveys that we sell send out and so to. I've been extrapolating that info myself from audits that get sent into the [00:10:00] state auditor office.

Rebecca Graham: So now I'm starting to compare those numbers, and I don't have any solid data yet, but I think it's going to be very interesting to see How those three feet of the stool are are represented when we have some good numbers. I do have state numbers for 2022 so once I've got all of those columns organized and buttons clicked we'll have some really good information to see how that property tax number compares to other funding that's coming.

Rebecca Graham: Rebecca, what about you? What do you remember about those ones? I remember that there were lots of current legislators and lots of candidates, particularly there were county candidate, commissioner candidates that were there.

Rebecca Graham: And I thought that was really interesting. Like I said at the beginning, I think there were a lot of talk about EMS services and public safety housing, as you mentioned. Education was brought up as well. And as we all know, and we've been saying [00:11:00] the main education policy Research Institute is doing a deep dive on the EPS funding formula.

Rebecca Graham: So it's going to be really interesting to see how that study plays out. And if municipalities could see any benefit from any kind of adjustments that would be made or recommended. Yeah, the EPS formula doesn't count special education funding as an essential service in that calculation, but we all know that is on a statewide level and it falls to the municipality who, really doesn't have any control over the needs of students in terms of their special education needs.

Rebecca Graham: And I know that one of the things that's happened with the increased valuation assessments that the state has done on all communities. Is that a number of communities who were receiving revenue sharing to and support for their schools are now minimum receivers and suddenly their school bill has blown up.

Rebecca Graham: We've heard that pretty much [00:12:00] across the board and the valuation may have blown up but the ability for those people in that community to pay or the needs of that community certainly hasn't blown up. That is true. And there's a lot of evaluation done with that school lunch number, like the low income numbers that now that school lunch is free.

Rebecca Graham: A lot of people aren't filling out those forms. So I don't think that's a really good model for the income level of those towns. Yeah. , since COVID things have changed so much that I think everything just needs to be re evaluated. One of the things that I remember really starkly about those free and reduced lunch programs and those forms was that you could see in the younger groups.

Rebecca Graham: So like K through five or six, they were being filled out by parents and sent back. And then in some communities, at least one community near me, over 75 percent of the school population qualified. And then suddenly that dropped off to [00:13:00] nothing or 20%. in high school. And it's not that suddenly those same kids got wealthy and no longer qualified.

Rebecca Graham: It's that the forms aren't coming back in the kids, maybe aren't bringing them home, but there's also a stigma or was a stigma that was associated with receiving those because they oftentimes are different meals. And there was a way of getting called out. So I think that The benefit of having that free lunch is reducing the stigma entirely and getting the food to the kids that we know need it, depending upon those numbers, they still haven't reduced the stigma if you're using a measure that we really were trying to break away from.

Rebecca Graham: And that's even despite the schools trying to educate parents and say, even if you don't qualify, fill it out for us, because we need the data in order to receive the funding. And I'm not sure that even that helped bring those numbers back up for, especially for the older population of students.

Rebecca Graham: I'm wondering if there isn't [00:14:00] a different way to approach that, like through MRS, I would think that they would have a per capita number knowing how the residents have, filed their taxes. They would, if they have dependents. Yeah. Yeah. It's tied to the dependents and obviously their income level would be known to MRS as a result of that.

Rebecca Graham: So it would, remove the need for them to do one more thing in order to get something to benefit the entire community and just use existing data. Yeah. That's interesting. That's an interesting concept too. And you wouldn't even need people, just like geographic data that who are in this.

Rebecca Graham: School district. If they're, regionalized school districts. Yeah, 100 percent because, who's underneath, who's a dependent age and right there, there will be complexities that, obviously aren't even reported on that free fund that could be captured in that way.

Rebecca Graham: That's interesting. It's a one and done so that the need is pretty obvious. And you would think along those same [00:15:00] lines that there have to be how many other programs out there related to how many other areas of need that could be solved in the same kind of way. Yeah. I'm sure MRS will love that.

Rebecca Graham: We'll just solve all the problems, the three of us. So some of the areas that we've been to more recently have been in rural northern areas. So we were in Somerset, and then we were also in Millinocket and in Bangor. Bangor is not really rural, but similar issues. And I think one of the things we also heard around the realm of public safety was around how county jails are funded.

Rebecca Graham: And what has happened with the state contributions to the operations of county jails and what pressures are in those facilities that are well beyond any ability to locally address or solve those problems yet tremendous amount of local resources are being [00:16:00] required to address what is the triage of last resort, basically.

Rebecca Graham: Yeah, that has been very interesting and helpful for me to hear the differences between jails and prisons. And I didn't know that distinction actually, until I went to these regional meetings. I've just figured they're, jails and prisons are one and the same, but clearly, they are different.

Rebecca Graham: And the jails seem to be taking a brunt of the medical assisted treatment because they come to them in their most vulnerable. form before they get convicted and hit the prison system. Yeah, that pre conviction thing is also holding up a lot of So we heard in Penobscot that, 90 percent of the folks that are committed and currently in that facility are too high risk to be in the community and released on pretrial detention in the community, and have a lot of co occurring disorders, but also have been languishing there for quite some time because the judiciary is backed up.

Rebecca Graham: So they're not even convicted or sentenced yet. Just waiting [00:17:00] for the trial. Yeah. And of course they have a whole bunch of needs in there. And the other startling thing was the use of DHHS to commit individuals to these facilities because there are no forensic beds for mental health. So you have folks that are significant public safety risk, either to themselves or others and need a secured confinement.

Rebecca Graham: But there are no mental health beds for them that are available and therefore the county jail becomes that space and the county's operations are funded by property tax. So the lack of state investment in those resources that are so desperately needed has really put a burden on kind of a really bad situation for those individuals to be in the county jail as well.

Rebecca Graham: Nor are they trained to deal with the type of mental health issues that are coming to them. And you have to wonder how many of those folks who are there on pre trial or even who get convicted may not have [00:18:00] committed a crime in the first place, had they had the appropriate. Level of mental health care in the first place.

Rebecca Graham: It just this whole discussion, excuse me, this whole discussion has been really eye opening for me. I had no, this is the one area where I have learned the most personally during these During our forums, and, the county tax bill would come and we'd pay it when it was time. We'd take the 60 days to pay it and walk in and hand them a check on Friday afternoon so they couldn't cash it until Monday morning.

Rebecca Graham: But, someone in Bangor mentioned that they wait until the day and they're thinking about sending it in pennies. But yeah, we did that every year. One year it was actually on Halloween and my treasure and I went to it. Went to the county and paid it in costume but, it's the thought process behind what is it exactly that the counties do beyond jail and public safety that is resulting in these [00:19:00] astronomical.

Rebecca Graham: County tax bills that are coming to the municipalities. When in some cases they're paying for services that they're providing themselves. And and a lot of times we don't have much if any say over the county budgeting process. So it's been this has been very interesting for me so I've appreciated this conversation, a lot. I think what was also startling for me to hear was in Presque Isle where the police chief was talking about the burden that poses on his staff, where they know that they have someone that they have 300 calls with, they can watch this decline of the individual, knowing that they need services that are not available anywhere in a rustic.

Rebecca Graham: They've got first line, they can deal with triage in that moment, but basically they're just constantly going to the same place, waiting for that person to commit a crime so that they can get them into. [00:20:00] The county facility county jail, and they'll get some treatment, but not necessarily the mental health treatment that they need to be having.

Rebecca Graham: And recently the legislature has required county jails to provide that but they never provided the funding for that. So they're often done by, a vendor who's also doing their medical care in that facility. I, to what level they're even equipped to be able to handle individuals that are in that state of crisis and long term, they can't force medication on them because they're not in a hospital setting.

Rebecca Graham: And that's one thing that, a lot of folks need to be stabilized but because there's not in an inpatient bed or behavioral bed they're not getting the specialized services that they need. And arguably, if you are, we know we've heard pretty resoundingly that the folks that are in county jails are not individuals that existed the way they used to be.

Rebecca Graham: They're not folks that have stolen cars [00:21:00] or written bad checks or even committed an OUI. These are folks that are in there for a really complex, high level and often violent reason, probably associated with that decline in mental health as well, but they've got a lot of needs that really can't, if you're paying for their care of last resort, I don't know how you use that.

Rebecca Graham: And that's one of the things I focus on is the agency. Like how would a community decide to address the deficit in those supports? Do they have agency to build a statewide system for mental health? Is forensic beds and inpatient beds and behavioral health that meets, parents and students in that location to get them?

Rebecca Graham: That's something you can't build on a local level, nor would you want that to not be available at the place of need. So I don't know if you can do that through property tax. From what we've heard, mental health resources North of pretty much Augusta basically are non [00:22:00] existent, you can't get any resources.

Rebecca Graham: And so that whole half of the state is just languishing. North, West and East because in coastal areas they don't have it either and in mountain areas they don't have it either it's really much the I 95 corridor, and that stops at Bangor. And that was something that I, you could, was never actually said in words, but that you could take away from the conversations in those places like Skowhegan and Presque Isle and even Waldo County to some extent that they, those municipal officials really feel distanced from the world, really.

Rebecca Graham: Because they are so rural and because their services are so limited not for lack of their own resources, but just because they're You know, the volunteerism is down. There's, the population is aging. They don't feel like they're being heard by the state. And that really was, I don't think that would be the same conversation in a [00:23:00] Freeport or York County or even Northern Cumberland County, even here, in, in the Bath Brunswick area.

Rebecca Graham: But some of those, some of these places that we've been to, those people feel. It's obviously that they don't feel like they're getting the services that they need from the state and then as a result can't provide the services that they're required to provide. communities need. Yeah, that was also interesting to me when we were talking, when we were in Waldo County, they, there was zero treatment facilities there.

Rebecca Graham: The county jail is the location that someone who's in a crisis that is a danger to themselves or others is going to end up into at some cycle. And the impact that has on The folks that have to deal with them on a regular basis to watch it decline to get to that point and not really with the tools, which I think law enforcement is used to having tools to say to stop behavior, and there is no tool to deal with this.

Rebecca Graham: You can deal with the crisis in the moment, but when people need that ongoing care. They've got great triage [00:24:00] local crisis response but there when you need that ongoing elevated next level, it's non existent. 

Rebecca Graham: I think we heard that with some housing programs to which. I thought were really interesting in discussion and Waldo but also in discussion with Kathleen Billings and Stonington, who was in the middle of a county meeting that night but understanding how that rise and assessed value really impacts those residents and basically they don't have.

Rebecca Graham: the ability to compete for those programs for affordable housing, but they have severe need and severe limits on their geography. They're not going to grow land on a peninsula. So they're, and they're not also going to have a a sewer system and a water department in the way that Portland or South Portland could have.

Rebecca Graham: And so the programs that are targeting that are really focused. on having things like transportation and infrastructure, but yet the need for affordable housing is really acute and really profound in [00:25:00] those areas where they don't have those resources and so they've got to compete for this small rural pool that's pretty much gone the moment that it drops because everybody wants it.

Rebecca Graham: For that same reason there's a more of a rural need in a vast state that has 486 other municipalities than in a, in where we know everyone wants to live, like me, in the city, interesting, on the news recently, all of these potential affordable housing projects being blocked by local residents and, the ones that qualify for this money that you're talking about, that the folks in rural Maine, because of their, or coastal rural Maine, because of their valuations don't qualify for, but they want the housing.

Rebecca Graham: They want the housing. can't and can't get the supports they need to get it. And meanwhile, you've got folks in other parts of the state who are willing to build it and have the resources and capacity to do and the communities are saying no. [00:26:00] Yeah, part of the reason why developers are targeting those areas is because they are going to make more money than they are going to in providing housing in another location.

Rebecca Graham: So that profit motive is something that nobody really talks about openly. No one's building any house unless they're making money off it . They're not make doing it to break even. So one of the, one of the, Proposes that I heard that I know that would not be uniformly welcome was trying to get a program to maybe build municipally owned a mobile home park, because.

Rebecca Graham: Mobile homes are something that someone can own and can grow in value, but also don't need to be living necessarily right on top of somebody else, you can have a yard, you can grow your own food, you can have a place for your kids to play in a neighborhood that you wouldn't necessarily in a really dense block of apartments in a shared setting.

Rebecca Graham: So they are attractive for folks that. We can see asset value increase in [00:27:00] that. We know they're targeted by corporations as they are selling and moving away from family ownership to kind of corporate ownership of these trailer parks underneath because the land is rented and the land's value grows even if the building's value doesn't grow.

Rebecca Graham: I think one of our town managers was like, why can't we get programs or why can't those programs actually look at creating those places? Because that's something that you could build a large septic system and kind of mini public water system for, it would provide a lot of housing that would really bring residents of mixed, whether it's senior or families and allow them to have a workforce.

Rebecca Graham: to actually deal with their annual tourist onslaught. Some, folks feel the same way around that, but I think if you look at the changes in how manufactured homes are constructed and built, that a lot of the stigma around them can be argued away pretty [00:28:00] easily too.

Rebecca Graham: So 95 units in Stonington might not make sense in a big huge tower block, maybe a 40 lot would. Yeah, makes sense. It might help a lot of folks that are local residents stay in those communities. A lot of older people in rural and coastal areas are really faced with those transports and those limitations but they own their homes and they also like that stability of being in those homes.

Rebecca Graham: And that doesn't mean that they have access to the social supports and health care that they need, but there's a lot of emotional connection to place that I think doesn't get valued as much in these conversations and folks appreciate the value of looking at the trees that they've grown around them, hopefully we can have conversations that are a little more holistic next year.

Rebecca Graham: Most recently just this week, we went to Millinocket. Yes, we did. That was a, that was an interesting conversation around EMS. Yes, it was. The biggest thing I learned in that [00:29:00] conversation is that they have an older population. A lot of their calls are non transport calls, which they can't bill for.

Rebecca Graham: And their EMS service is struggling right now to stay afloat. As is the surrounding towns. We heard from Brownville too, , who were there and Patton., We were in East Millinocket and they were struggling as well and looking at how to assess the provisions that they provide in adjacent communities.

Rebecca Graham: So they provide an ambulance service for Sherman, which is quite a distance. And I think that region is also hit with the unorganized territory. So they have to provide for the unorganized territory. So it might be seven or eight miles in one direction that the ambulance has to go. Or more before it can reach its location and then seven or eight miles back, which takes it out of service for the rest of the community, but to actually adequately staff for that.

Rebecca Graham: Is it extreme expense, yet it's the end of the line, there's [00:30:00] nobody that they could fall back on so they recognize that there is that cost and I think Patton was the one that actually created a. An apartment space. They're renting it. I was just going to say that. Yeah. I was just remembering they create, they bought an apartment so that their crew could be within five minutes of the bay, the ambulance bay.

Rebecca Graham: . Because it's not like they have local paramedics, but they were also having issues with training and that's something that I hadn't heard in other areas. And they were having issues with getting folks trained to that certain level. They wanted to keep it local. And they have the space, the UMA.

Rebecca Graham: Satellite. office . So it's the Katahdin Higher Education Center, which is UMA, has a satellite campus there and satellite programs. Is it the Economic Development Office as well? I think it is. It's really a central hub. And they were getting ready to launch their a much new and improved, quite lovely section that was child care, 

Rebecca Graham: [00:31:00] oh yeah. Beautiful outdoor playground. They were doing the ribbon cutting the next day. Susan Collins is coming. Yeah, that was really great to see and to talk to Deb, the senator director and understand how passionate she was about around that. And really, it really is the hub of that region in terms of being able to be a place where folks can learn and grow literally.

Rebecca Graham: But they don't have a paramedic program. And the necessary folks to teach that program that are very close to that center. I think the closest that they were able to go is Bangor, which is over an hour away. And then when they were offering the program, because you have to have a high level of credentials in paramedicine to be able to administer the program that allows you to pass the national test.

Rebecca Graham: Maine has switched from what was a main certification for that to a national test. And. One of the bigger issues around the national test. It's great. You can work an ambulance anywhere, but one of the issues is [00:32:00] that it also covers a lot of procedures that aren't encountered.

Rebecca Graham: Like there, there are a lot of Things that wouldn't necessarily apply, but you still need to know it in order to pass that test. So it also requires a paramedic of a higher standard and level to teach it. And those are been hard to find. So the availability of one, I believe the last class they said was during the day, which makes it really hard for volunteer communities like that.

Rebecca Graham: And folks who have jobs in other areas to do. Their public service in that way,. Cause most of the people who are serving in those roles are for volunteer type roles. Yeah. And they have full time jobs that they can't leave just to go to their training. Yeah, which is, it's pretty intense and it takes a long time, but also driving an hour after you've worked all day to take a class is a struggle.

Rebecca Graham: People are doing it. I think that's, that was the other [00:33:00] key thing that they're finding people to do it, but If they don't offer it in the evening hours, that's a challenge so I think Deb was committed to trying to figure out how to bring that closer to the Millinocket area and she's always working on something.

Rebecca Graham: I know that was me as just so municipal, I don't think she realizes it, but she, yeah, bootstrapping. Yeah. Let's figure out how to get it done. There's a need. Let's figure out how to get it done, and the ideas that have come about the community policing and community paramedicine programs, I thought were great ideas.

Rebecca Graham: I don't know if that's something that you can explain a little better than I could, but those are great ideas that I think could really benefit the rural patrol issue that's been brought up at a lot of these forums. Yeah, the Main Community Policing Institute our friend Noel March has been helping us set up a lot of these meetings as well, and he offers a micro certificate that's supported by the Alfon Center, the Alfon Workforce Development Funds that have been reallocated as, or [00:34:00] reauthorized as well, but it would allow a lot of smaller departments to maximize their training resources.

Rebecca Graham: and support getting a micro certificate for an officer with a focus on community policing. And I think that program does a couple of things. One is, it provides a professional credential that's sellable for an officer, but it also provides an opportunity to, for them to expose, to actually think about even more education.

Rebecca Graham: I think there's a significant number of the vast majority of, Law enforcement has a higher education. Other, associates are bachelor's degree. Last time I did a survey. So there's been this misconception that they don't, but most of them do. And many of them are continuing education as they are working.

Rebecca Graham: So sometimes . The communities are providing funds for that as part of their training dollars. But the main community policing Institute is also providing like a certification for an entire department. If they. provide opportunity [00:35:00] and maybe use some of those training funds to pick up what is the other half of the cost.

Rebecca Graham: So half of the costs of that program are paid for by the L fund center, and the other half are received at a reduced rate for MMA members. But also is a, it's a much smaller cost for the student that's going there and that includes all the books and stuff. In that grant. So it's a real benefit and can jumpstart someone to getting a higher degree if they so choose as well.

Rebecca Graham: And then is there a program at that level as well for the Paramedicine, or is that a state license for the EMS responding department? The community paramedicine program, from what I understand, is created to, to fill a backstop gap between home health support and discharge from a hospital, particularly for older folks, but folks that actually might need some low level care that [00:36:00] ambulance services do all the time, but.

Rebecca Graham: isn't billable for them unless they put them in the bus and take them someplace else, which is insane. So if you received that care in a doctor's office, like wound changing dressing that care would not be billable if it were conducted by a paramedic. So a lot of folks are held up to in the facility until they can have.

Rebecca Graham: Some notification that home supports are going to be there to help them with that transition and often those people are equally hard to find. So older folks if they, if no one shows up, if they have a home health person and doesn't show up but they need a catheter change or they need their bandage changed or medicine administered or that type of thing.

Rebecca Graham: They call the ambulance anyway. So the community paramedicine program actually would allow it to be billable. And it creates a relationship. So the person that's doing the, that type [00:37:00] of programming is working underneath the med control doctor. So it's working under their license it's a

Rebecca Graham: mobile health care type. . Yeah. In a really different way, but through the existing ambulance. It is, I think, a challenge for billing and that type of material, but it's, I think there's also a certification piece there too. I just think that would be such a great service. It is 

Rebecca Graham: there's a pilot program I think that's going on right now. And I think the problems around the billing are what are most a challenge for all of those facilities so like one of our platform ideas that's been floated is making sure that we get that care on scene, reimbursed, because it would be reimbursed in any other situation inside of a facility and therefore should be reimbursed.

Rebecca Graham: and help make ambulance services whole so that the cost of running them is somehow picked up at a greater, , or at least covered in a greater way. So many individuals when faced with an [00:38:00] ambulance ride someplace really would rather not if they had the choice because they know that it's going to be expensive afterwards and that they might be getting billed for that.

Rebecca Graham: I had made a note to look up community paramedicine in other states. And I had, I did that and I saw that in 2012, a pilot program was passed for Maine, but it was never funded and it was just left to the communities to figure out how to figure out how to get it up and running and pay for it. Which I thought was interesting.

Rebecca Graham: . The barriers that we place in front of individuals, like we, I don't know how to measure whether or not it's proportional, but I think there are some things that are no brainers and I get why they exist, but sometimes they have the opposite impact, we're seeing that pretty starkly now. We're also seeing pretty starkly that that strong sense of community and how people live in that community and how they are supported is largely through volunteerism and local agencies [00:39:00] and local community resources that are stood up by individuals who really care about that.

Rebecca Graham: So there's vacuums that are created when those go away or you don't have volunteers. And yet they provide that really important role. I don't think it's a conundrum that Maine feels alone. I just think we have such a vast geography that it stands out really profoundly.

Rebecca Graham: Lots of folks are talking about regionalizing to provide in some ways stable employment because the part time Employment for multiple communities doesn't necessarily attract people that want to do that. You don't have benefits, . So we heard some COGs are doing things like applying for grants to see if they can hire a regional code enforcement officer that would help communities and provide a full time level of employment and hopefully stability for someone who wanted to do that for multiple communities.

Rebecca Graham: I

Rebecca Graham: think we heard battered around. A similar approach or desire for a similar approach to animal control and assessing . These are all positions that are often, [00:40:00] or have been historically. Provided on a part time basis within communities that are part time. I even spoke to someone after our trip to Hancock County about a very small plantation who can't find a treasurer.

Rebecca Graham: We need someone to come do our books one day a week. And I said, talk to the cog, tell them, and even if they can't find it, talk to your other communities. Who's who else is in the same boat that you're in? Who can you all share someone to come one day a week to provide that full time position for someone who's willing to travel to those different communities?

Rebecca Graham: So it's, it was just interesting that it isn't just our service hubs that are the service positions like CEO, ACO, That are struggling. It's those basics. You got to have somebody to do your books and that's a struggle. Plantation may not be able to afford to have a manager or a full time person come in to do all that.

Rebecca Graham: That's what this gentleman was saying. We have a [00:41:00] population of 60 people here. I'm one of three select men. I'm retired. I get paid nothing. I don't know how to do any of this. I love my community, but you've got the same seven people doing all of the Doing all of the jobs and it's a real struggle, especially as, again, that population ages or just wants to do something else because they've been on the select board for 30 years, it's, yeah, I don't know how you grow public service or belief and faith and desire for public service.

Rebecca Graham: I sometimes think we were a messed up generation. I don't want to be on your town's budget committee. Come on. . Of course, everyone hates you. Why would you not want that? I remember when I first started working at the town office that it all of a sudden hit me like a ton of bricks and I said to all of my other to my son's.

Rebecca Graham: Parents that are all, we're all within a five or six years span. We have to take, we have to learn how to take care of this town because if we don't, [00:42:00] we're going to inherit it and none of us are going to know what to do. And that is slowly starting to take to happen. 

Rebecca Graham: One of the things that I else, we know because we have some folks on our LPC that are providing services for adjacent communities. They're overwhelmed. So it's, it's great, but there often isn't someone that has that capacity locally.

Rebecca Graham: And we're finding that even at the state level with auditors. So getting audited financials for a municipality is a huge problem because there are no auditors that a want to do government audits because it's probably nowhere near as lucrative as doing corporate audits. And all the people who did do them are either retired or dying.

Rebecca Graham: Right. And now you even have the people who are still left to do the audits, cherry picking, which communities are the most lucrative for their firms to do. And, when you're told by the auditor, who's done your audits for a hundred years, that all of a sudden your community is too small to make them any money, [00:43:00] where does that leave you?

Rebecca Graham: Yeah. Pretty much if there's money to be made. In government, then it isn't a job or a task that is done by government. It is done by someone else. And that's. Yeah, there it next week , we're going to be in Machias. One of the communities there reached out he had signed up initially and he told me that they were actually having their annual town meeting that day because they had been waiting for their audited financials for so long so they had to move it out.

Rebecca Graham: So they're having their town meeting on that day, which is the week of the election. As well. And I was just like, Whoa, your clerk is a hero. Holy cow. Can't even imagine. Can't even imagine doing that. I think you're going to be solo for that one, Rebecca.

Rebecca Graham: Yeah. Story of my life. Oh, one wants to come party with me. I'm a child. Was Cassett that night? [00:44:00] Yes. You're going to be doing a speed dating. Oh no, I guess not. I'm not dating. I'm a married woman. It's not speed dating. It's speed networking. I think speed dating of municipal officials. Speed networking of municipal officials.

Rebecca Graham: That's correct. Yeah I won't be in Lincoln County so I'm expecting you to be the good Rebecca in Lincoln County. I will be. I'll leave while I'm in Washington County, and I will be the bad Rebecca, Washington.

Rebecca Graham: Anything else around those meetings.

Rebecca Graham: I think they were a great idea. I think people really appreciated having that opportunity, which we've seen in the comments saying we should do this more often or like I've seen in the phone calls that have been reaching out after each one. Huge intake uptick for me anyway, for member engagement, people calling about trash, people calling about all sorts of topics that we've discussed, taxes et cetera, as a result of these meetings.

Rebecca Graham: So it's, Clearly was a great idea. So kudos to you, Graham, for that. It's a, I think [00:45:00] anytime we can do something that helps educate our members and ourselves, I've learned a ton during these. Yeah. I think it's, I think it's great. It's been a lot of fun to be a part of.

Rebecca Graham: Thank you for that. I think the initial vision was that we would be educating a lot of the candidates around municipal issues. I think that's happened. I don't, necessarily have any feedback for that. But I think what we have done is build relationships, build new relationships, but also bridge some of the collective local government pressures and Rather than historically pointing fingers at different levels of government, we've taken an opportunity to build those relationships and to actually tell those stories so that everyone knows that it's not, just county law enforcement because state police have never had an increase 30 years going up because of that and the need to hire more deputies.

Rebecca Graham: It's actually. County jails, it's the cost of county jails and the reduction of state funds that [00:46:00] have been dedicated to that task over time, and the exponential growth of the need to address complex situations and realities within those facilities that are driving up a lot of those assessments and focusing on what's biggest.

Rebecca Graham: We often focus on symptoms, I think, and I think that maybe state policy benefits when we focus on symptoms and don't focus on problems because often you can, as as you've sat through and gone through those study groups, everyone knows what the problem is, and nobody wants to implement it, but we'll walk around it, we'll take little bites around it because that doesn't require us to pay for anything or to tax in a different way.

Rebecca Graham: Thank you. That would be too much. So I think those conversations and focusing on what the real problems are have been really beneficial for our members that have attended to because they didn't really understand what was going on within county jails and I've heard pretty consistently that was a big productive conversation, but also just figuring out where we can [00:47:00] align.

Rebecca Graham: I think it was productive for all three levels. I think It was refreshing to see how open people were to talking and sharing their ideas and the problems that they have and solutions for those problems. And, it was nice to see legislators and candidates for the legislature that were would come and were not just campaigning, they were open minded and listening and asking questions so you know that was refreshing I'm encouraged for this next legislative session.

Rebecca Graham: Yeah, there was one that we did that had only. A single municipal official, but we spent a lot of time with some candidates who are really knowledgeable candidates and really talking through what regional services needed as well because we've been working with our regional partners where they exist.

Rebecca Graham: To talk about their pressures because they're providing important services and it's also important for our members to know that those services are out there and where they can get them. So we were able to connect like sewer districts in Waldo that are small sewer districts to how they can access the funds for resiliency [00:48:00] that might be available for them to address some of the climate impacts through the regional planning partners there and the Midcoast Council of Governments.

Rebecca Graham: And that was, those were great opportunities to have those conversations and also have conversations with our elected officials, presuming that they get elected previously to go back over how things got to the place that they were, and where we need support going forward. And some of that also allows us to engage our LPC members.

Rebecca Graham: a lot better. And in some places, they were really great and showed up. And we know that we'll be able to rely on them to beat the drum when those folks go home to say, Hey, but hopefully establish relationships between them and their local representatives. And candidates for office so that they know they've heard from Elaine, what is going on in Solon and what is most important for her and what she might need.

Rebecca Graham: And they might think about that when they are in the State [00:49:00] House. So in some places those relationships I think were strengthened and renewed. I think it was good all around. And I just learned so much and liked meeting, a broader group of municipal officials.

Rebecca Graham: It's a lot of work that I'm really grateful I have you guys to help lift learned a lot about how to Do it a subsequent time and yeah, all that stuff you got to expect some of those bumps in the road the first time you deploy something new.

Rebecca Graham: Yes, and we've been pivoting since but I also think that

Rebecca Graham: , I, we're going to have more face time at the state house definitely but I really loved having these in community conversations, led by municipal folks and talking about their issues in a meaningful way to hear the things But they thought because I learned a lot in that as well.

Rebecca Graham: And I would love to do, if I could just spend all of next session, just meeting with municipal officials and candidates in their communities, I'd be a happier advocate.

Rebecca Graham: There we are then. There we are, then, your [00:50:00] task for this weekend, should you choose to accept it, is to try to find that old Maine song about biscuits and gravy with butter and tough Maine women. If anybody knows who's listening, please email the podcast at MMA podcast. at memun. org. Thank you. You'll prevent us from going crazy.

Rebecca Graham: No, that already happened.