Don Strout: Serving Corinth – in Many Ways

(from Maine Townsman, October 2011)
by Eric Conrad, Director of Communication & Educational Services, MMA

Sometimes, the career that you envision just doesn’t work out. And sometimes, the career that you actually experience is so much richer.

Don “Donnie” Strout is a case in point. Strout has served the Town of Corinth and State of Maine in so many ways it’s hard to list them all: selectman, town manager, state legislator, Transportation Committee chair, planning board member, firefighter, ambulance driver, church deacon and many more.

But that wasn’t the plan. “When I graduated from high school,” Strout said, during a recent interview in the kitchen of his Main Street home, “I wanted to be a teacher and a coach.” He turned to Lorayne, his wife of 37 years: “I bet you didn’t know that, did you? I’m not sure I ever said that before.”

Instead, after graduating from Higgins Classical Institute in his hometown of Charleston, Strout took a job as footwear salesman, first with W.S. Emerson and then with the Hurd Shoe Co. out of Utica, N.Y. In both cases, his sales territory was expansive – covering much of New England, but the work was steady and he stayed in footwear from 1960 to 1979.

During that time, he also coached youth sports teams in the Corinth area. Coaching raised his profile in town because he met so many parents along the way. That, in turn, allowed him to win his first election to the Corinth Select Board, in 1971. He served a series of six, one-year terms as selectman and sprinkled in two terms on the town Planning Board.

GAS PRICES SPUR CHANGE

In 1979, a change in the economy caused Strout to consider a career change. “Gas prices went from 59 cents to 86 cents a gallon,” Strout recalled. “I decided it was time to get off the road.”

The Town Manager’s position in Corinth had opened. Strout possessed excellent municipal and legislative experience (more on that later), so the select board’s decision on whom to hire was an easy one. If fact, the select board approached him. Thirty-two years later, Strout calls his tenure as Town Manager the most satisfying period of his career.

Ask Strout to recite his biggest achievements as a manager, and he starts with the town budget. When he took over the job, “Corinth was in pretty good shape,” he said.

The mil rate in town was $14.10, but Strout vowed to his select board that he could get it below 13 mils. He did that, and then some – getting the rate below 10 mils in just a few years and even as low as 8.90 at one point. In 2010, Corinth’s rate was still relatively low, at $11.80 mils.

Strout said his approach to municipal budgeting is the reverse of what many municipal managers do. Rather than start with expenses and revenues, and then finding out what the mil rate will be, he would target the mil rate first and work backward, honing spending priorities and requests at the end.

Of course, for a town manager to accomplish that, the local school district has to cooperate. Fortunately for Strout, it did. He enjoyed an excellent relationship with Leonard Ney, who served as superintendent of schools from 1979-2006, nearly mirroring the years (1979-2010) Strout served as Town Manager.

“He’d call me every year after Jan. 1 and approximate what the school costs would be,” Strout said of Ney. “School spending was 70 to 73 percent of the overall spending, so that made things a lot easier.”

TRUST FUNDS HELP TOWN

Corinth is fortunate to have several dedicated trust funds that have helped pay for cemetery upkeep, general assistance and school scholarships over the years.

One such fund has a neat story behind it. In 1939, a gentleman from Massachusetts happened to be in Corinth when his car broke down. The local repair garage got his car running right away – and at no charge.

The man never forgot that act of kindness and, when he died, he left $600,000 to the town to serve the “deserved poor.”

Another large fund established by the Morison family was worth $2.2 million in 2010, according to the town’s Annual Report. That fund is used to pay capital and road improvement projects. The Smith family also created several funds to pay for scholarships.

Strout also had an unusual philosophy about townsfolk who sought general assistance money.

“Welfare never really bothered me,” Strout said, speaking of his beliefs as Town Manager and state lawmaker. “If you need help, you need help.”

But seeing that Corinth is a relatively small town, at approximately 2,800 residents, Strout also knew which people requesting assistance were able-bodied and which were not. If someone who was in good health sought general assistance, and Strout knew there was a job opening somewhere in town, he’d steer the person toward working whenever possible.

Sometimes, he said, people who receive general assistance are unfairly stigmatized as lazy or irresponsible. That’s not always the case.

“I remember one guy who received welfare. He got a job later and paid it all back,” Strout said.

PASSION FOR ROADS

If there is a single passion that stirs Strout the most, it’s his dedication to improving roads in Corinth and surrounding communities. Strout worked on roads in two capacities: as town manager and elected state representative, including one term as Chair of the Legislative Transportation Committee.

Strout first ran for the state House of Representatives in 1973, while he was simultaneously serving as a town selectman. The Penobscot County Republican Chairman asked Strout to run for the Legislature during a special election that occurred after the previous House member – also a Republican – died.

Then-Gov. Kenneth Curtis, a Democrat, sought to expand his party’s majority in the House of Representatives, so the governor came to Corinth to campaign against Strout, who ultimately won by a 41-vote margin. “We had a real close race,” Strout said.

Talk about being busy, Strout was now a selectman, lawmaker and traveling shoe salesman. One point of pride is that he only spent one overnight in Augusta during his 23 years as a House member. He and Lorayne raised six children and Strout felt it important to be home at night, especially once his years as a traveling footwear salesman were over.

“Roads were a priority for me because, especially as a legislator, I was always looking at costs that affected the towns,” he said.

There are two road-related achievements Strout talks about with pride. First, he notes that Corinth had 36 miles of town gravel roads when he became manager in 1979. When he retired last year, the number was down to five miles.

As a town manager, Strout knew how expensive it was to maintain Route 11-43, a key stretch of road that connects Corinth to Exeter, Corinna and ultimately to Interstate 95 in Newport. For years, the town maintained Route 11-43 in the winter and the state maintained it during the summer.

“During the time I was town manager and in the Legislature, I commuted every day across Route 11-43 to Augusta,” he said. “I said that while I was in the Legislature, that Route 11-43 from Corinth to Corinna would be taken over by the state. And, while Gov. (John) McKernan was governor, I was able to get that done. It was approximately 15 miles and that was a savings not just to Corinth, but to two of my other towns.”

Strout acknowledges that serving dual positions as town manager and state legislator is frowned on by some. But, he said, the Corinth select board respected both roles.

“The Board of Selectmen was very supportive of me doing both,” he said. “There was a benefit, I guess, to doing both – a benefit to them and to the town.”

Strout also is a fierce supporter of home rule. He was a visible part – featured in a statewide television commercial – of the effort in 2009 to oppose a tax-cap measure known as “TABOR II,” which voters soundly rejected.

“Decisions like that should be made at the local level,” said Strout. “When you turn them over to the state, they mess things up.”