Blue Hill voters to weigh $23M budget, half raised via taxes

If all items approved at town meeting, residents will see 9.7 percent property tax increase

April 1, 2026

By Tricia Thomas

BLUE HILL—Voters in Blue Hill will consider candidates for the town’s select, school and planning boards, as well as supplemental tuition for students who attend GSA, at its municipal election at town hall on April 3.

The following day, on April 4, voters will again convene for a town meeting at the Blue Hill Consolidated School. There, they’ll consider more than 60 warrant articles that make up the town’s proposed 2026-2027, which totals more than $23 million, with an estimated $11.5 million of that to be raised through property taxes. If all spending proposals are approved by voters on April 3 and 4, Blue Hill taxpayers could see a 9.7 percent tax increase this year.

Select board member D. Scott Miller presented the proposed budget at a public hearing and pre-town meeting on March 26. According to slides Miller showed at the meeting, much of the increases stem from spikes in education costs and costs passed on by Hancock County, as well as proposed expenditures for deferred or vital infrastructure projects. The dollar value of requests for municipal funding from third parties, including local nonprofits, also has increased, Miller said.

“Due to a combination of increases in the school budget, the cost of several deferred investments in Town roads, and a substantial increase in ‘third party requests’ for taxpayer funding, the 2026 warrant articles, if approved with no reductions, implies an 9.7% increase in property taxes,” one of the slides in Miller’s presentation states.

GSA supplemental tuition request

On April 3, voters will cast referendum ballots on a request from George Stevens Academy for $1,530 in supplemental tuition for each Blue Hill student who attends the school, totaling $116,280. This is the seventh consecutive year that GSA has asked sending towns to pay the supplemental tuition to help balance its budget in the wake of enrollment declines.

Deb Ludlow, chair of GSA’s board of trustees, and board member Chris Gleason urged those gathered at the March 26 public hearing to approve the request. Ludlow and Gleason also answered questions from the audience about the request. In addition, they pointed out that GSA has reduced its request this year from $1,700 to $1,530 per student as part of a commitment to balance its budget, provide more transparency around budgeting and decision-making, and do more to increase its enrollment.

Voters in Penobscot have turned down GSA’s request. In Surry, the school board has recommended a “no” vote ahead of a municipal election there on April 10. 

School budget

Miller reported at the March 26 public hearing that 40 percent of the municipal budget is tied to education. In addition, education costs comprise 74 percent of the proposed tax increase, Miller said.

Both Miller and RSU 93 superintendent Derek Perkins said at the meeting that school costs have risen sharply in the past year, resulting in a proposed budget of $8,865,479. Increases in the cost of benefits and salaries for teachers and staff, and a $500,000 spike in special education the school district must pay to educate a student out-of-state are the primary drivers of those increases, Perkins explained.

Public safety building

The town is seeking approval for a $1.5 million loan to help pay for a new public safety facility on Tenney Hill. The new facility would replace an aging fire and emergency services building on Water Street. 

Under the plan, the fire department and Peninsula Ambulance Corps would use a former dormitory purchased from GSA last year for living and office space, and the town would build a new, five-bay apparatus building behind it. The town has applied for $3.4 million in federal funding for the $6.7 million project. Voters at the April 4 town meeting will be asked to approve borrowing $1,542,500 from the Maine Municipal Bond Bank and culling $50,000 from unassigned municipal funds for the project. A similar, $1.2 million loan was approved by voters last August.

Wastewater treatment plant outfall pipe

The town is budgeting $4 million for long-planned upgrades to its aging, harborside wastewater treatment plant, which will begin this year. It also is seeking another $2 million to repair a broken sewage outfall pipe. While the pipe, buried under Blue Hill Harbor, has been temporarily repaired since the break was discovered last year, it likely needs to be fully replaced, Miller said. Neither project will be paid for through property taxes, he added.

Turkey Farm Road reconstruction

The town has budgeted $1.6 million for a long-awaited reconstruction of Turkey Farm Road. The project is one of the last on a list of road improvement projects the town has been working through over the past several years, Miller said. Only $300,000 of the cost will come from property taxes, Miller said.

The budget also includes $250,000 for reconstruction of the Kingdom Road, among other expenditures.

Miller’s presentation, which outlines the proposed school, county and town budgets in more detail, can be viewed on the town website. Warrant articles to be considered on April 4 are also available online.