The numbers behind the proposal

Certified tax roll and valuation history

Mill rate, valuation, and commitment, 2025 back to 2018 — peak mill rate was 24.50 in 2021.

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Ownership history

12 years, several owners, no redevelopment.

Recorded transfers of the holding, priced sales only. Transfers recorded at no consideration — internal corporate reorganizations — are omitted.

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The return calculation, in full

This is the only forward-looking number in the proposal, and it is deliberately the narrowest one available.

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Notes and sources

Where each figure came from, and how it was worked out.

1. Source: Town of Island Falls, Independent Auditor’s Report and Financial Statements, Statement 3 (balance sheet, governmental funds) and Statement 4 (revenues, expenditures and changes in fund balances), 2021–2025. ↩
2. On the reserve figure. Fund spending swings with capital and grant activity, so months-of-reserve depends on the denominator. Both are shown; the lower one is quoted throughout.
   • Against FY2025 expenditures ($3,130,855): 7.8 months
   • Against the five-year average: 8.7 months
   The Government Finance Officers Association recommends a minimum of 2 months. ↩
3. Source: Statement 4, FY2025 audited financial statements. ↩
4. Why this matters to the proposal. Education and county assessments consume most of what property taxes bring in, and neither is set by the Selectboard. The part of the budget the town controls is small — which is why growing the tax base matters more than trimming spending. ↩
5. Source: Town of Island Falls annual tax commitment books, 2018–2025. The commitment column is real estate only; the certified commitment of $1,846,878.24 for FY2025 also includes personal property. ↩
6. Uncollected real estate tax. $335,496 across 501 accounts remains committed but uncollected. ↩
7. Source: FY2025 Town of Island Falls assessing record and commitment book. Any of these parcels can be looked up independently, without an account, at piaindustries.com/quattro/lookup/. ↩
8. How this holding was identified. No field in the assessing record labels these parcels as the starch factory. They were identified by tracing recorded transfers from National Starch to the current owner, then matching that owner to the FY2025 assessing record. The chain of title below lets that identification be checked. ↩
9. Why a map may show a larger number. One further parcel sits inside the site footprint and is deliberately not in the table above: 002-017, 0.88 acres. It carries no owner, no account and no valuation in the FY2025 assessing record, so there is no document naming who holds it. Selecting the whole footprint in a mapping tool therefore returns 7 polygons and 11.45 acres, not 6 and 10.57. Every total on this page uses the smaller, documented figure, because acreage nobody can produce a record for should not be counted in a total put in front of a selectboard. Establishing title to 002-017 is part of the work the fund would pay for. ↩
10. Scale. Parcel 002-018 is on its own the 15th most valuable mapped parcel in Island Falls, of 1,079 mapped parcels carrying $92,533,000 in total assessed value. The whole holding is 0.55% of that total. ↩
11. Source: Maine real estate transfer tax declarations, Maine Revenue Services public lookup. ↩
12. The site changed hands at 2009 prices and again in 2021 without a project resulting. That record is the evidence for the claim that private capital alone will not resolve this site — not an opinion about the owners. ↩
13. Source: Maine State Treasurer, monthly municipal revenue sharing distributions, and the FY2027 revenue sharing projection workbook. Years marked * are partial. State valuation is reported by the Treasurer in thousands and has been converted to dollars here. ↩
14. Read this carefully. Revenue sharing has grown 5.7× since 2018, from $58,968 to $334,621. Most of that growth is Revenue Sharing II, which pays more to towns with a high property-tax burden relative to the state — so the increase measures taxpayer strain, not municipal success. ↩
15. Every assumption behind that figure:
    • $4,000,000 is invested in the site. That is PIA Industries' estimate of the private capital a town commitment would unlock, not money anyone has committed.
    • Assessed value of the completed project equals the amount invested. Assessors may value it above or below cost.
    • FY2025 certified mill rate of 19.50 held constant.
    • Excludes any TIF capture, any lift in abutting property values, and all excise and visitor spending.
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16. What is deliberately excluded. Any increase in the value of abutting downtown parcels; excise tax from visitors; and all spending at local businesses. Each is real and each is plausibly larger than the property tax effect above. All are excluded because none can be traced to a document — and everything on this page can. ↩
17. Grant precedent, for comparison. The town’s Island Bridge Community Park project carried a total cost of $3,510,000, of which $2,808,000 was awarded in grant funding — 80% — leaving a town share of $702,000. Source: Town of Island Falls grant award notice. ↩
18. Check any parcel yourself. Island Falls assessment records are public and searchable without an account at piaindustries.com/quattro/lookup/ — by owner name, address, or map and lot. ↩
19. Compiled by PIA Industries · last regenerated 2026-07-26 ↩