AUBURN — Faced with rising costs in the jail, which has not seen any additional funding from the state for the past four years, Androscoggin County commissioners cut funds from nearly every other county department in an attempt to lessen the county tax rate for 2025.

Wednesday night’s four-hour budget meeting grew tedious as commissioners went line-by-line looking for areas to cut in the preliminary $20.3 million budget.

By the end of the night, commissioners had cut nearly $150,000.

The Budget Committee gets its first look at the document on Oct. 2. The 14-member committee, made up of municipal officials and residents, will study the budget for the next month before sending it back to the commissioners for final approval.

Calling it a “difficult situation,” Chairman Sally Christner of Turner said solving the problem would take the cooperation of everyone to share the sacrifice. While nearly every county department had portions of their budget cut, some department heads fought those cuts.

Christner wanted a one-year hiatus on purchasing new furniture and computers, and she was largely successful in making those cuts.

The jail budget had been frozen for the past couple of years, capped at $7.92 million, but the actual cost to run the jail next year is listed at more than $9 million. The state has contributed approximately $2 million to Androscoggin County for the past few years. Unlike earlier years, the state’s supplemental budget no longer awards additional state funds for the county jails.

The county can no longer find ways to limit the increase.

Commissioner Garrett Mason of Lisbon blamed the state for the deficit. He noted over the last four years that all costs have increased due to the pandemic and inflation, but the state has not kept pace.

“We have very little control over this,” Mason said. “The state Legislature needs to support the jails before we get to a crisis level across the state.”

“We can’t kick the can down the road anymore,” Christner added.

Commissioner Andrew Lewis of Auburn said the board will likely have to raise the tax cap to fund the jail. The county has not touched the cap for several years.

Another problem exasperating the jail budget the Androscoggin County Jail is the overcrowding at the facility. Rated for 160 inmates by the state, head counts have exceeded 200, forcing jail officials to pay to board inmates at other correctional facilities. The large numbers also prevent the county from taking in revenue for boarding federal inmates.

In the proposed budget, the county lists zero income for boarding prisoners (it took in nearly $340,000 in revenue in 2024) while it has budgeted spending $300,000 to board its inmates compared to zero last year. That is a $640,000 budget increase.

Among the cuts made were eliminating the full $8,197 request from the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments. Commissioners said since the towns already pay dues to the organization, payment by the county would mean the towns would pay twice for the same service.

Commissioners also denied a $15,000 request from the Androscoggin Historical Society.