Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash

By Jack Beaudoin

DEER ISLE—Select board members expressed support for a new policy proposal, one they hope will slow annual increases in so-called third-party requests that go before voters at town meeting.

Third-party requests are funding requests by an outside agency or organization presented as an article on the annual town meeting warrant for a vote by residents, either at the meeting or by referendum. Currently, Deer Isle requires organizations requesting taxpayer support for the first time to gather signatures from 10 percent of the town’s registered voters in order to get on the annual warrant. In 2022, 1,174 ballots were cast in the gubernatorial direction, so new requests require 118 valid signatures.

But once voters approve the initial request, organizations no longer need to meet that requirement in subsequent years. Town officials say that has led to spiraling increases with a significant impact on the budget.

“The problem is that organizations often request increases every year,” Town Manager Jim Fisher said. “While I really like these third-party groups and the work they do, voters have a right to know how much these increases are over time.”

As an example, Fisher pointed to the last five years of requests from the Healthy Island Project. According to town records, HIP requested $3,500 in 2022. A year later in 2023, the organization asked for $5,000, an increase of 43 percent. It rose to $6,750 the next year, up 26 percent, and another 33 percent to $9,000 in 2025.

“This year they’re requesting $12,600, which is a 40 percent increase over last year’s request,” Fisher said. “I am very supportive of their work. But if you read their letter, the only numbers they use is to say their budget is up 15 percent and that they’re requesting 3 percent of their overall budget from Deer Isle.”

In 2025, there were 15 third-party requests on the Deer Isle ballot totaling $69,169. Five organizations requested increases, one actually decreased its request, while nine requests remained the same as 2024.

In an interview after the meeting, HIP Executive Director Rene Colson defended the requested increases for 2026, noting that in her nine years at the agency, its services—available only to residents of Deer Isle, Little Deer Isle, Stonington and Isle au Haut—have grown tenfold. “We are trying to fill gaps that are growing all the time,” she said. “We have become social workers for the Island.”

Colson said that as federal, state and local budgets cut services for the poor, elderly, and children, the need for those services don’t just disappear. “When those funds vanish, we step in to fill that gap.”

Options aplenty

The board considered a number of options that they felt might limit the increases.

“If they want to go up on their requests, they ought to be required to get signatures,” suggested board member Patricia Oliver. Fisher replied that since some increases were only a few dollars, while others were in the thousands, the trick would be in establishing an appropriate threshold that would trigger the signature requirement.

“What if we just put a cap on it?” board member Peter Perez asked. “If a request is accepted in one year, it can’t be increased for 10 years?”

Perez said that the volume of third-party requests was draining the town of money. “You can’t keep taking it from taxpayers—they have enough trouble just paying their current taxes,” he said.

Select Board Chair Ronald Eaton said the problem was that voters rarely said no to third-party requests at town meeting. With one notable exception in 2025, “everything goes through every year,” he said.

Fisher offered a third approach. He said that some towns put both the requested amount and a board-recommended amount on the warrant, although that didn’t work for referendum votes.

“We should definitely have third-party requests on the morning ballot,” said Perez. “It’s our only chance.”

Like many Maine towns, Deer Isle holds elections for candidates and certain referendum questions on the morning of town meeting. The afternoon session is a public meeting, and votes on warrant articles are usually tallied by a show of hands. Because the election generates greater turnout and offers a secret ballot, Fisher said he favored voting on requests in the morning, too.

“People are more likely to vote based on how they really feel in a referendum,” Fisher said. “There can be a fair amount of peer pressure to vote a certain way at town meeting.”

Colson said she understands that referenda are more expedient than deliberate discussions at town meeting, but argued that citizens ought to be able to debate the merits of third-party requests. In a morning election, voters are unlikely to have reviewed the annual town report in which all third-party requests are printed.

“In the meeting, citizens are able to discuss the requests in public, ask questions about them, and can even move to amend the requested amount down,” Colson said. “The ballot approach eliminates all those options. It’s just a less vibrant process at the community level.”

Stonington board shares concerns

Concern over third-party request increases isn’t limited to Deer Isle. In Stonington, Town Manager Kathleen Billings said that third-party funding requests make it nearly impossible to cap annual real estate taxes at her goal of two percent. “Every year they just ask for more and more,” she said at the November 3 Stonington select board meeting.

Several select board members in both towns said that the municipalities already subsidize local nonprofits because they are not required to pay real estate taxes. While some organizations make voluntary payments in lieu of taxes—sometimes called PILOTs— many of the officials agreed with Perez when he said that the PILOTs rarely equal the amount of taxes that would have been levied if the nonprofits were not exempt.

If adopted in Deer Isle, any new policy would not apply to the current cycle that concludes at the March 2 town meeting. Third-party requests are due by the first of December, Fisher said, so any new rules would not go into effect until next year’s round of requests for 2027 town meeting.