End of an Era: Bar Harbor Holds Final Town Meeting at Conners Emerson School. Voters approved municipal and school budgets, preserved school reserve funds, and honored longtime community leaders during the historic gathering.
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End of an Era: Bar Harbor Holds Final Town Meeting at Conners Emerson School.

Voters approved municipal and school budgets, preserved school reserve funds, and honored longtime community leaders during the historic gathering.

Carrie Jones

Jun 03, 2026

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The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by the Maine Seacoast Mission.

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BAR HARBOR—The Bar Harbor Town Meeting, June 2, was a meeting of last times and a meeting of surprises.

In what was likely the last Bar Harbor Town Meeting in the Emerson School gym, due to a new school being built, Bar Harbor voters approved the town’s budget articles.

“This is our last night in this space,” Moderator Katherine Emery said.

It was also the last night for Valerie Peacock chairing the Town Council who chose not to run for reelection.

At the end of the meeting former Councilor and former State Rep Jill Goldthwait spoke to Peacock’s service on the Council and as its chair.

“Val Peacock leapt right into the deep end and stayed there for six years. Val is a very thinky person,” Goldthwait said, adding that Peacock was committed to the town, practically moving into the town’s municipal building when the town was between town managers.

It was also a meeting of surprises. The family of former Warrant Committee member Robert Chaplin, who’d been a staple at town meetings and died earlier this year, gave out pencils in his honor.

Emery put on a spider man helmet for the last item of the meeting. Raffle winners received tiny super hero figurines, as the theme of the night were that the approximately 107 voters were heroes of civic participation in a meeting on a Tuesday night that not only determined the town’s budget but also took just under three hours to do so. That effort was spearheaded by Town Clerk Liz Graves.

Graves also read the town’s meeting ground rules about civility prior to the election of moderator Katherine Emery who led a civil and engaging meeting.

Emery thanked the legacy of long-time moderator Bill Ferm and also acknowledged the people who attended during what was a busy time of year. She thanked all.

“We are participatory action and democracy this evening,” Emery said.

MUNICIPAL BUDGET AND MUNICIPAL EXPENDITURES

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Town Manager James Smith thanked everyone, staff, Warrant Committee, School Committee, and Town Council for their work on the budget. He also thanked voters for attending.

The Council’s municipal budget was proposed as $30,568,005. Of that, $14,022,878 comes from property taxes. Those numbers increased by $250k due to changes at the meeting.

FIRST DIFFERENCE OF OPINION: TWO NEW POSITIONS

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For that $30.5 million municipal budget, the Town Council and Warrant Committee had slightly different recommendations for expenditures.

The Warrant Committee did not agree with two new positions: a purchasing agent and a foreman in environmental services. An amendment to decrease the budget by the cost of those two positions eventually failed.

Smith explained the rationale for hiring a purchasing agent, speaking to the town’s annual average of $7.2 million in procurement without someone in charge. Purchasing in the town is currently decentralized.

He said the Town Council felt it would improve multiple aspects of town government to have someone in that position.

The other position is at the transfer facility and the Town Council believed that there was a need to better manage the facilities. That position will be effective January 1, 2027.

“We’re going to need better management and oversight,” of the facility, Smith said.

Bo Greene said if she knew the position was part of an environmental focus, she’d be in favor.

“I’d really love to know recycling actually happens,” she said, adding that it was “mind blowing” that the town doesn’t recycle glass. She received scattered applause.

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Ezra Sassaman asked if the town had estimated savings as opposed to the cost of the procurement position.

Even 1% of the annual spend would make the town ahead of the financial curve, Smith said, of the procurement position.

State Representative Gary Friedmann said, “The idea of reforming the transfer station process has been discussed by Council for many years.”

Rep. Friedmann said that it was astounding that operating the transfer station is more than $1 million a year.

“Tell us how this position is going to help?” he said. “Why has it taken so long to come up with a plan” to deal with waste.

Chair Val Peacock said that there’s been an analysis of the transfer station and the Council has been looking at the equitable distribution of cost.

“This is something that’s coming,” she said of changes such as potential programs like pay-per-throw and recycling. Some work, she said, has to be done to the transfer station on how things are organized in order to have change.

“It’s going to get a bit more complicated,” Peacock said, but that is needed to move toward the town’s goals.

Smith said that the town has capacity limitations with a public works director managing numerous capital projects.

“We just don’t have the bandwidth to move it forward” as fast as the town would like, Smith said.

Barbara Dunphey asked if the town would move forward with the two positions, what would be the timeline for having the purchase manager in place. She asked if there was a drop dead date for solid waste plans.

The purchasing agent could begin July 1, Smith said. Solid waste is more complicated, he said. He needs to prepare a full plan and then present it to the Town Council.

He said it was likely that a plan would ultimately shift the cost burden from general fund and property taxes to consumers of solid waste. The more people consumed, the more they paid.

The Town Council recommended $30,568,005 in expenditures.

The Warrant Committee requested an amendment to decrease an amount of support by $162,817.

There is no line item veto, so the Town Council could still keep the positions even if the Warrant Committee’s amendment had passed. However, the motion failed 56-50.

A voice vote on the original budget request passed.

SECOND DIFFERENCE OF OPINION: USING SCHOOL SAVINGS TO OFFSET BUDGET

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The Warrant Committee also didn’t agree with Councilor Joe Minutolo’s suggestion (which passed the Council earlier this year) to take $250,000 out of the school’s capital improvement program line item for maintenance and repairs and other needs that it had built up through the years.

The Town Council had proposed using fund balance ($861,073) and other sources to help hold the property tax rate increase to 2.8%.

Minutolo had reasoned that it would be a new school next year and not need many costly repairs.

“I was just trying to soften the blow to the taxpayer a little bit,” Minutolo said.

Rep. Friedmann said that if you divide the number of students into the education budget it comes to $30k per student, without including $10k per student for a debt payment for the new school.

The Warrant Committee and school officials disagreed with the plan, saying there can always be unanticipated costs and that the money had been built up specifically, in a fiscally responsible way, to make sure the school didn’t have to defer needed maintenance, which, they reasoned, was part of the reason the current school had to be replaced.

The final amount in that school line would be $500,000 with the $250k reduction that the split Town Council had proposed.

The Warrant Committee’s amendment that would keep the funding in the school’s savings reserve originally passed.

However, there was a motion to reconsider the Warrant Committee amendment after Emery said people were confused about how they were voting.

Substantially more discussion occurred before the second vote on that same amendment to restore the funds to the school’s CIP.

It was explained that voting yes would keep the $250k in the school’s fund for maintenance. Voting no would move the savings into the general fund to help defray taxes.

School Committee Vice Chair Misha Mytar asked how much that would actually save in taxes.

Finance Director Sarah Gilbert said that for every $100k it’s 4 cents on the mil rate. So, that $250k would be an increase of 10 cents on the mill rate.

In terms of a $522,350 median home that would be an increase from the currently proposed budget tax bill from $5,502 to $5,702. The change translates to approximately $52 a year, she said.

Councilor Earl Brechlin said there would still be $500k in that line item even with the $250K moved.

School Committee Chair Marie Yarborough said when she first served on the School Committee in 2016 she learned there were two main needs: making sure teachers were paid what they were worth and keeping the building that was falling apart from falling apart.

“We have a wonderful school filled with talented people who are paid their worth,” Yarborough said of the situation now.

The town, she said, heard that need and knew that and gave the children of now and the future a beautiful gift in the form of the school currently being built.

“We watched our CIP be depleted, defunded, not added to,” and taken away from during the first five years of her school board service, she said. That, added to all the problems in the structure and deferred maintenance, is why the town ended up having to spend so much money on a new school.

“Respectively, this is not just about building maintenance,” she said of the funds the Council requested being moved.

It’s furniture, equipment, computer, technology, money toward a playground and other needs, Yarborough said.

She said, “These are well thought out, well planned projects that we have committed to.”

Just like Smith said about the transfer station, Yarborough said, that there are goals for the school and its kids that the town is moving toward.

In ten years, she didn’t want to see the School Committee back at the Town Council or Town Meeting saying, “We want $1 million.

Ellen Grover said she was working in the school 25 years ago.

“It was unsafe. I had asbestos in my classroom that we just put tape over. We had books in the library that were getting wet every time it rained,” she said.

People voted for a new school, but Grover said she worries that the town won’t sustain the school that is built with enough of a year-round population.

The amendment passed again, 58-41.

SCHOOL ARTICLES

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School budget articles, approved by voters at the meeting, totaled $10,032,107. The town appropriation is just under $9 million, an approximate $900k increase from the current fiscal year.

All the education articles easily passed in just over an hour.

EDUCATION BUDGET EXPENDITURE ARTICLES

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All articles authorize the School Committee to expend the following for the fiscal beginning July 1, 2026 and ending June 30, 2027. All were unanimously recommended by the School Committee, Warrant Committee, and Town Council. All of the following items authorized a total budget of: $10,032,107.

There was little discussion on the articles, just one clarifying question. All were voice votes with little to no nays.

  • Regular Instruction $4,039,381
  • Special Education $2,492,902
  • Other Instruction $154,120
  • Student & Staff Support $1,036,304
  • System Administration $294,713
  • School Administration $502,510
  • Transportation & Buses $474,751
  • Facilities Maintenance $952,426
  • All Other Annual Expenditures $85,000

OTHER EDUCATION BUDGET ARTICLES

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Four other articles were also approved by the voters who attended.

All four articles were also unanimously supported by the School Committee, Warrant Committee, and Town Council.

Grover asked what the anticipated enrollment was for the school year. The current is 328.

“We anticipate that it will be a similar number,” Dr. Heather Weir Webster, the Conners Emerson principal, said about the anticipated enrollment for the school year beginning in September 2026.

One article raised the town’s portion of the Essential Programs and Services Funding Act (State Recommends $ 5,392,997) as its contribution to the total cost of funding public education from kindergarten to grade 12. The act is state statue and required a hand count.

The town raised $4,492,288 of the $5,392,997 with a vote of 97-0.

The town then voted to raise $4,343,602 in funds exceeding the State’s Essential Programs and Services allocation model.

The two articles jointly raise a total town appropriation of $8,835,890.

The vote was 86-17 and a ballot count.

The town then approved the total of $10,032,107. It passed 92-2.

The town also approved the School Committee to expend state or federal grants or programs of $503,557.

The school’s debt payment is not in the school portion of the budget but in a capital improvements line of the municipal budget.

OTHER ARTICLES

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The increase means an additional $200 for a person with a median value home of $522,350, for a total of $5,702 in annual tax.

For “Other Revenues” line of the budget, the Town Council proposed using that fund balance to lower the amount of property taxes that would need to be raised to cover the cost of the budget.

The Council had unanimously recommended using:

  • $15,770,898 in other revenues
  • $111,073 from the Cruise Ship Fund Balance
  • $750,000 from the town’s regular fund balance, of that $250k was from the school’s CIP reserve for building maintenance.

A split Warrant Committee (9-4) recommended voters reject the plan.

In separate articles, the town approved

  • accepting grants and donations,
  • prepayment of taxes,
  • making the first half taxes due and payable on or before September 30, 2026; second half taxes shall be due and payable on or before March 31, 2027 and that interest shall be charged at the annual rate of 7.0% on any unpaid taxes due on September 30, 2026 beginning October 1, 2026 and on any unpaid taxes due March 31, 2027 beginning April 1,2027,
  • and establishing the interest rate to be paid to a taxpayer who is determined to have paid an amount of real estate taxes in excess of the amount finally assessed for 2026 at 3.0% per year on the amount of overpayment.

Below is the initial budget summary for the town warrant that is a more condensed version of the budget but includes some information about property tax mil rates and what they equal in dollars. This amount has changed due to the $250k reduction in fund balance, which means that amount has to be raised via property taxes.

A summary table of the municipal budget for 2026, detailing appropriations, revenues, and property taxes for various funds, including County Assessment, Municipal Budget, and Education Budget.

LINKS TO LEARN MORE

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Information about the candidates can be found on our elections’ tab.

The town’s election tab is here. The election and voting on land use ordinance changes are Tuesday, June 9.

Town’s budget information page

A Citizen’s Guide to Town Meeting, Maine Municipal Association, 2022

Bar Harbor Town Meeting: How it Works, What You’re Voting On, The Budget, and More

Carrie Jones

May 29

Read full story

Disclosure: Shaun Farrar is an outgoing member of the Warrant Committee and a part of the Bar Harbor Story. Also, I won a little super hero during the raffle. He is terrific.

Correction: Meg Kelly has one more year and then will likely run for reelection for the Warrant Committee. We have corrected this with so many apologies to Meg at 10:11 a.m., June 3.

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All photos: Shaun Farrar/Carrie Jones/Bar Harbor Story.

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