Veiw of Buckfield from the Town Manager

By Alexis Sears 10-24-2025

Cameron Hinkley the curent Town Manager was kind enough to answer some questions about Buckfield.

In your opinion, what are some challenges you think Buckfield is having?

The Pandemic changed our lives a lot. Ever since the Pandemic, property sales in Buckfield have not only increased, but driven values up immensely. People from out of State have purchased homes and land, often site unseen for hundreds of thousands of dollars more than their assessed values. Those sales are then used by Maine Revenue Services to generate an annual state valuation that has a very large impact on our community. Since 2019, the Town of Buckfield’s State Valuation has risen from $128,050,000 to $227,000,000 (2025). An increase of almost $100 million. However during that time, Buckfield has not seen an influx of new businesses or significant growth in taxable real estate.

The results of this rapid increase in valuation has a significant impact on residents’ tax bills. For example, the RSU uses a state mandated funding formula that uses 75% state valuation, and 25% pupil count. It averages the last three years of state valuation, and the result determines how much the taxpayers in Buckfield contribute to the RSU in taxes. As Buckfield rises in value at a more rapid rate than other towns in the RSU, the share of the budget Buckfield pays rises, even when pupil count drops. The only thing that the town can do to combat these increases would be to cut back on local services.

Buckfield needs to find a way to attract investment in our community. Whether that be commercial or residential. More development helps to spread the tax burden across more people. Unfortunately, the situation we find ourselves in is that we appear to be unaffordable. When comparing Buckfield to other options, it is a hard sell knowing that taxes in Buckfield will be higher even in the short term. A lot of residents on fixed incomes are finding themselves in a situation where they need to decide to sell their property because they cannot afford their taxes.  

Do you think the BJSHS and the town office could collaborate on projects?

Absolutely. In fact the school already collaborates with the Town Office annually. Students have spent time cleaning up cemeteries, the municipal center grounds, and setting flags on the graves of veterans throughout the dozens of local cemeteries.

Additionally, the school has partnered with Buckfield Fire and Rescue and established an academic internship program. This program is designed to introduce students to the field of emergency services. Through hands-on training, it sheds a light on a very critical role in small communities like Buckfield, as well as a career path, that are interested in this type of work.    

What projects could BJSHS help with?

Buckfield Recreation is a very important resource to our community. It relies solely on volunteers that are often overworked. Maintaining the Cross Rd Recreation park is a lot of work for a limited number of people. I myself spend countless hours pulling weeds out of the Softball Field, painting dug outs, lining fields, and ensuring that everything is ready on practice and game days for the kids. The Baseball Field is starting to become overgrown, as is Bessey Field on Paris Hill Rd. These fields require ongoing maintenance that really just requires some elbow grease and time. Collaboration with the school to address some of these needed items would be perfect, while offering students community service hours. The Recreation Field  has had piles of mulch in the middle of the playground for a few months. The Town just hasn’t had the resources to get it spread out evenly.

Additionally, I think there are other opportunities that the Town could help the school with. Emergency Services isn’t the only career field that is available. Not all career fields are glorious and exciting but just as important. As someone who never thought I would ever work in local government, I see the need for young ideas, and people with a drive to serve their communities to make them a better place. Many of the professionals that I encounter throughout my many meetings are aging. When they retire, we will lose a lot of experience, and we need young adults to step up and take over where they left off. These roles have a huge impact on Town’s across the state. The potential for creating a program focused on educating students on careers in local government is there.

What success have you had this year so far?

The Town of Buckfield was in rough shape when I took over in 2022. I was the fifth Town Manager in less than 2 years. Bookkeeping was a mess, annual filings were incomplete, audits incomplete. We hadn’t even published a Town Report since 2019. In the three years I have been with the Town, we have gotten everything back on track and in compliance with the multitude of requirements placed on us by the State. One of the longest standing issues that had been resolved however was the audit situation. It was like a mountain that I could never get to the top of. However this year, working with the auditor, the Town of Buckfield finally made it through the backlog and completed it’s first audit since 2019. It proved what I had assured residents for years, that the Town was in a good financial position. We have also begun working on the 2024-2025 audit, ensuring that we continue to be up to date.

Additionally, after over a year of compliance and review from the State of Maine Historical Preservation office, I finally signed a contract to have the 12 windows in the Town Office portion of the Municipal Center replaced with energy efficient windows that will save taxpayers money in heating costs. This was made possible by the Town’s enrollment in the Maine Community Resiliency Partnership, that afforded us the opportunity to be awarded a $50,000 community action grant. The building still needs a lot, there are 77 windows that are almost 100 years old. But even small steps are big wins.

I have had a lot of other items completed that had gone unaddressed for a while. Beginning paving projects on much neglected roads, town wide roadside mowing, shoulder repairs to washed out areas due to severe weather, and the widening of the Railroad Bed Recreational Trail so vehicles can get through without being damaged by overhanging tree branches. All small items that seem insignificant, but needed to be addressed.