Penobscot Valley: Prudent Investments Linking Our Towns
A Report on Education, Housing, and Capital Planning Opportunities

I. INTRODUCTION 

A. Structure of Report 

This report brings together three documents focused on regional planning and investment opportunities in the Penobscot Valley. In what follows, data and analysis are presented to assist with the development of the Penobscot Valley Prudent Investments Linking Our Towns (PVPILOT) research project. Our goal is to help advance the project's discussion of regional cooperative strategies for achieving education, housing, and public service provision objectives. Section II of this report examines potential cost savings from school consolidation. Existing data sources are employed to quantify the dispersion of school resources across the Penobscot Valley and explore the benefits of school consolidation. Section III of this report explores the availability of rental and affordable housing in the Penobscot Valley and discusses the role of regional planning in attaining regional housing policy goals. Existing data resources are employed to describe the housing stock in these different communities and initiate a discussion of regional housing strategies. Finally, Section IV examines potential gains from cooperative capital investments. This section presents the results of a series of interviews conducted with town managers in the participating communities conducted during August and September of 2002. 

B. Background 

The cities and towns participating in PVPILOT represent are a diverse group in several respects. They range in population from 584 members of the Penobscot Nation on Indian Island to over 31,000 people residing in Bangor. Ten of the fifteen member towns have fewer than 5,000 residents (Figure 1). Between 1990 and 2000, the five largest communities lost an average of 3.1 percent of their population, while the ten smaller communities had an average gain of 7 percent.

Figure 1. 2000 Population in PVPILOT towns.

The 2000 property tax rates in the PVPILOT municipalities, as reported to Maine Revenue Services, range from $12.60 per $1,000 in Kenduskeag to $24.00 per $1,000 in Orono (Table 1). State property valuations in 2002 also vary considerably, even when adjusted for population. The town of Veazie, with a property valuation of $67,700 per capita has more than twice the population-adjusted tax base of both Glenburn ($32,700 per capita) and Kenduskeag ($31,400 per capita) and Orono ¹ ($24,670 per capita). 

Median household income also ranges widely, from less than $25,000 in the Penobscot Nation to more than $60,000 in both Hampden and Holden. From 1990 to 2000, median household income increased by at least 80 percent in Hampden, Holden, Orono and Veazie. Conversely, median household incomes grew less than 50 percent in Bradley, Glenburn, Kenduskeag, and Orrington.

Recent demographic and socio-economic changes in these communities are relevant to PVPILOT's discussion of regional cooperation, as they convey information about the diversity of this group of communities and foreshadow future distinctions across the group. Table 2 summarizes a handful of such changes between 1990 and 2000. The number of housing units, renter-occupied units, persons under age 20, persons over age 65, and jobs in 2000 are displayed by community along with the percentage of persons over 25 with a college degree and workers over 16 who commute by car alone. In addition, the percentage change in these values from 1990 to 2000 is also shown in Table 2. Although this table explores only a subset of changes, it does an effective job of pointing out some interesting trends. First, as mentioned previously, the PVPILOT communities range in size from urban centers to rural communities. Second, a mismatch between job growth and population growth is evident, as several of the larger communities recently lost population but gained jobs over this time period. Finally, higher rates of increase in population and housing units are occurring in smaller, rural communities such as Glenburn, Hermon, and Bradley. The benefits and costs of regional cooperation will depend on factors such as the indicators and changes presented in Tables 1 and 2. The diversity of this group of communities implies that different municipalities will seek different rewards from regional cooperation. In turn, the costs of such cooperation will also vary across municipalities. In the sections that follow, we explore regional strategies to achieve education, housing, and public service provision objectives.

Table 1: Population and Economic Indicators

Table 2: Demographic and Socio-Economic Changes (2000 Values and Percentage Change from 1990 to 2000)

Endnotes:

1. (Orono's measure of $24,700 per capita may be unusually low due to the large presence of university students included in the 2000 Census count of population.)

Go to the next section:  Section 2: Education