Jerry Miller and Owen Craighead continue on committee, but step down from officer positions

Carrie Jones

Jan 10, 2025

MOUNT DESERT—The Mount Desert Warrant Committee began its work for the upcoming budget season and town warrant, January 7.

“We don’t want to rubber stamp the board of selectman. We want to be the scrutinizers of all the articles,” Chair Phil Lichtenstein said of the 20-member committee’s duties.

According to the town’s charter, “The Warrant Committee consists of at least twenty registered voters of the town who review the articles of the Town Meeting warrant and publish recommendations to the town for action on them.”

The committee, he said, tries to have everything finished 45 days before the annual town meeting. The committee’s last meeting will on March 18. They will always meet at six p.m. They do not meet during school vacation week.

The group also discussed seeing the full applications for third-party requests and paper copies of information in packets rather than just digital information.

Next week, January 14, the members will look at the administrative portion of the proposed town budget. It will go over separate portions of the budget and suggested ordinance changes or creations at each meeting. Currently, March 11 is when the committee will look at the school budget.

The fiscal year 2026 begins July 1, 2025 and ends on June 30, 2026. It currently recommends the salary increases derived from a salary survey by Zach Harris, who is a human resources for the town. The 7.83% salary increase that is requested is partially offset by reducing the general government by 3.1%, according to a December memo from Town Manager Durlin Lunt. That same memo explains that contracted and municipal services section of the budget increased by 27.5% because multiple agency requests were moved out of third-party requests this year and into the section for contracted municipal services.

The warrant committee members briefly spoke about agencies working with memorandums of agreement as opposed to third-party requests and the differences. Those agencies with MOAs become a line item in the administrative budget. Mount Desert Chamber of Commerce, Island Explorer, Neighborhood House, the various Mount Desert libraries, and Great Harbor Museum would be examples of the agencies that are now line items.

There was also some discussion about concerns regarding proposed salary increases and how salary comparisons were used for positions in places such as Lewiston and Bar Harbor. Those potential increases have been discussed earlier at the selectboard meetings.

Former Secretary Owen Craighead said he’ll be missing some meetings and asked if anyone would like to step up as secretary. Lauren Kuffler was elected to that role.

Long-time Co-Chair Jerry Miller stepped down and Allen Kimmerly was elected co-chair. Phil Lichtenstein returned to his chair position.

“I think you’ve done an excellent job,” Craighead said of Miller and his service.

“I’ve been doing this a long, long time,” Miller said. “I can’t even remember how long.”

---

LINKS TO LEARN MORE

Warrant Committee site

December 13 memo

FY 26 CIP – General Fund Summary and Detail Budgets

FY 26 CIP – Marina

FY 26 General Government/Administration Budgets

FY 26 Public Safety Budgets

---

Bar Harbor Story is a mostly self-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Thank you for being here with us and caring about our community, too!

Thanks for reading Bar Harbor Story ! This post is public so feso feel free to share it.

Share

If you’d like to donate to help support us, you can, but no pressure! Just click here (about how you can give) or here (a direct link), which is the same as the button below. Our mailing address is 98 Ledgelawn Ave., Bar Harbor, Maine, 04609

To support The Story