The town of Perham had been using the services of Michael McPhereson’s Just Value Associates in the past on a sub-contract basis to provide tax assessment services to the town. In the March, 2010 town meeting, voters chose not to continue funding that service and directed the selectmen to no longer use it by voting not to appropriate any money to pay for it.

Perham operates under a town meeting form of government where, unlike a town council, the inhabitants in the town actually vote on how much money is spent and on what. The selectmen are elected merely to carry out the orders of the voters, not to make arbitrary spending decisions on their own.

However, after last year’s voter decision to discontinue the use of Just Value Associates’ services, the Perham selectmen went ahead and continued using them anyway.

The selectmen tried to hide the tax assessor's $3,120 payment in a ambiguously labeled "Other Administrative Expense" column, within the town's proposed $56,000 Administration expense request, which also contained fees for a Sheriff deputy to attend several past meetings and posting/property line signage.

“Last year we spent $255 on Other Administrative Expenses so I just wanted to point out that we've gone up dramatically,” said Deborah Viola.

“MMA stated that we could use the tax assessor on a consulting basis only, and that's what we did to do the tax commitment,” said head selectman, Leslie Taylor.

“As I recall at the last town meeting when it was suggested to raise $5,000 for an assessor the townspeople voted that down,” said Roger Connelly. “Their intent, as the townspeople - a legislative body - told those selectmen we don't want you to use him. Now they've gone forward and spent $3100 in such a manner as to try to deceive us. We have no interest in what Maine Municipal tells them they can or cannot do. [The selectmen] seem to be confused. We are the legislative body of this town. We're telling them with these votes what they're to do - not go behind our backs and do something else. I'm quite disappointed that we would allow this to go on.”

In addition to arbitrarily requesting funds for a tax assessor that was already voted down, the selectmen also arbitrarily requested funds to pay for an Aroostook County Sheriff deputy to be in attendance for “crowd control” at several of last year's selectmen's meetings. “It seems that should have been voted on in an open selectman's meeting,” said Viola. “Mr. Ray Wood, the head selectman at the time, just had the Sheriff deputy come up and the deputy continued to come for several meetings after that. I think the process is that it gets voted on. One of the selectmen should have made a motion to have the sheriff in attendance at our meetings, then the other selectmen would have said yea or nay. That did not happen so I don't think we should have to pay that.”

Ellie Jordan made a motion to amend the original motion of $56,000 down to $51,000, effectively cutting out the “Other Administrative Expense” items. The townspeople then voted to approve that reduction of town expenses to $51,000, thereby once again defunding the tax assessor position. It remains to be seen if the selectmen will honor the voters' decisions this time.