Maine Paid for a Dam. It Never Got One. Now the County Wants $153,000 Back.
In 2020, Franklin County, Maine, agreed to spend public money helping the state’s largest ski resort build a dam. The plan was to dam the south branch of the Carrabassett River near Caribou Pond, six miles south of Sugarloaf, to create a snowmaking reservoir. Six years later, there is no dam — and the county is fighting to recover the money it paid out.
The project was abandoned by 2023. By the county’s accounting, Sugarloaf was invoiced roughly $222,000in late 2024 — including charges dating back to 2018, two years before the agreement was even signed. The resort has repaid about $69,000. The balance still in dispute: about $153,000.
It is a small number against the federal budget. It is also exactly the kind of line item the OpenTheBooks “Waste of the Day” project exists to surface: public money committed to a thing that never got built, billed against costs that predate the deal, and clawed back only because local officials noticed.
- $153,000 in public money the county is still seeking to recover for a dam that was never built — Bangor Daily News · WGME · May 2026
- $222,000 total the county invoiced Sugarloaf in late 2024 — some of it for costs incurred in 2018 — Bangor Daily News · May 19, 2026
- 0dams actually built with the money committed under the 2020 agreement — Portland Press Herald · WGME · 2026
- 2018the year charges in the invoice began — two years before the agreement was signed — Bangor Daily News · May 19, 2026
- 2023the year the dam project was abandoned — though billing continued past that point — SnowBrains · Press Herald · 2026
A county tax fund, a ski resort, and a reservoir that existed only on paper. The structure mattered more than anyone noticed.
In 2020, the Franklin County commissioners agreed to subsidize a Sugarloaf plan to rebuild what local reporting describes as the Caribou Dam, on the south branch of the Carrabassett River in Mount Abram Township — a wooded basin near Caribou Pond, roughly six miles south of the resort. The goal was a reservoir: a reliable water source for snowmaking as winters grew more erratic, with secondary benefits for recreational access in the area.
The money did not come straight out of the county’s operating budget. It flowed through Franklin County’s tax-increment financing (TIF) development program, which funds projects in the county’s unorganized territories — the kind of program that typically backs snowmobile and ATV trails. As Commissioner Bob Carlton (Franklin County, board chair) put it, the funds were “not directly out of our budget but through the TIF program, so it’s public money.”
That distinction — public money routed through a development fund rather than a line in the general budget — is precisely the kind of arrangement that draws less scrutiny than it should. The money is real and the taxpayers are still on the hook. The oversight is simply one step removed.
By 2023 the project was dead. The invoices kept coming anyway.
The dam was never built. The site sat deep in the woods, reached by a dirt road, in terrain that intersected the Appalachian Trail — a remote, sensitive corridor where construction would have been complicated and heavily permitted. By 2023, Sugarloaf had informed the county that the project would not proceed as planned.
What the county says happened next is the part that turned a shelved project into a dispute. The billing did not stop when the project did. When Franklin County issued its roughly $222,000 invoice in late 2024, commissioners say it captured both pre-agreement costs from 2018 and charges they contend were unrelated to the dam. The resort repaid about $69,000. The remaining $153,000 is what the county is now trying to recover.
Sugarloaf is owned by Boyne Resorts, a privately held operator of roughly a dozen ski resorts. This is not a struggling mom-and-pop hill; it is a major commercial operator that received public money for infrastructure it ultimately did not deliver. Both facts are part of the record.
- →2018: Charges later included in the county invoice begin — two years before the formal agreement.
- →2020: Franklin County commissioners agree to subsidize the Sugarloaf dam through the county's TIF development program.
- →By 2023: The dam project is abandoned; the remote site near the Appalachian Trail is never built on.
- →Late 2024: The county invoices Sugarloaf roughly $222,000, covering pre-agreement and disputed costs.
- →2025–2026: Sugarloaf repays about $69,000; roughly $153,000 remains in dispute.
- →March 2026: Commissioners vote to ask the county attorney for ways to recoup the outstanding balance.
“I've asked them too many times for repayment for me to feel comfortable saying, 'we're just going to sit on this.'”
Franklin County Administrator Amy Bernard · March 2026 commissioners' meeting (via Bangor Daily News)
Every dime. Online. In real time. Our Waste of the Day project tracks the small line items that add up — public money committed to projects that quietly never happen.
The officials trying to claw the money back. Credit where it is due: they noticed.
Accountability here cuts an unusual way. The waste is real, but so is the fact that local Franklin County officials are the ones surfacing it and pressing for repayment. We name them as a matter of record — for both the money committed and the effort to recover it.
- Amy BernardFranklin County AdministratorHas pressed Sugarloaf for repayment repeatedly and said she would not recommend a future county project with the resort after this experience.
- Commissioner Tom Saviello (Wilton)Franklin County CommissionerAdvocated pursuing repayment of the outstanding balance aggressively at the March 2026 commissioners' meeting.
- Commissioner Bob CarltonFranklin County Commissioner — board chair (Carrabassett Valley district)Described the funds as public money flowing through the county's TIF development program and weighed the best path to recovery.
- Boyne Resorts / SugarloafPrivate resort operator that received the fundsParent company of Sugarloaf Mountain; the dam was never built, roughly $69,000 was repaid, and about $153,000 remains in dispute.
Money out, nothing delivered. It is the most common shape government waste takes.
Catastrophic, headline-grabbing fraud is rare. The far more common pattern is this one: a development fund commits public money to an infrastructure project; the project is studied, planned, and partly billed; then it quietly dies in a permitting thicket or a cost reassessment — and the money already spent buys nothing a taxpayer can point to. The OpenTheBooks “Waste of the Day” series, published with RealClearInvestigations, exists to catalog exactly these line items, one at a time.
The Caribou Dam fits the template cleanly. The reservoir was never built. The consequence axis is stark: dollars out, zero deliverables. And the billing reached back to 2018 — before the agreement existed — which is the sort of detail that surfaces only when someone audits the invoice line by line. Here, that someone was a county administrator who got tired of asking.
- →Delivered: No dam. No reservoir. No snowmaking water source. Nothing built at the Caribou Pond site.
- →Spent / at issue: About $153,000 in public money still being pursued, against a roughly $222,000 invoice.
- →Recovered so far: About $69,000 repaid by the resort — less than a third of what was billed.
- →Oversight gap: Charges from 2018 were billed under a 2020 agreement, caught only on a line-by-line review.
- →Mechanism: A county TIF development fund — public money one step removed from the general budget, and from routine scrutiny.
DOGE will dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies — the kind of small, quiet waste that adds up to billions.
Paraphrased commentary · not a verbatim post
Paraphrase of Trump's Truth Social announcement of DOGE; the mission frame, not the Maine case specifically.
The Waste of the Day series documents how routine federal and local spending — studies, designs, and shelved projects — burns public money on things that never get built.
A dam that was never built, paid for with public money. The smallest waste stories are the most honest ones.
The facts are narrow and verified: Franklin County, Maine, committed public money in 2020 to help Sugarloaf build a dam on the south branch of the Carrabassett River. The dam was never built. The project died by 2023. The county invoiced roughly $222,000 — some of it for 2018 costs that predate the deal — recovered about $69,000, and is still trying to claw back the remaining $153,000.
This is a dispute, not a criminal case, and no one has been charged with anything. We are not alleging fraud. What we are documenting is the shape of the waste: money out, nothing delivered, and oversight that arrived years late and only because a local administrator kept count. That is the value of cataloging these cases one at a time — the pattern is invisible until you add the line items up.
Credit is due where it belongs: the Franklin County commissioners and administrator are the reason this money is being pursued at all. The lesson is not that one Maine dam broke the budget. It is that $153,000 here and $153,000 there, across thousands of development funds and grant programs, is how real money disappears into projects that never get built. This page will be updated as the county and Sugarloaf resolve the balance.
