As soon as next week, Cape Elizabeth and Scarborough could be sharing tax assessing services, assuming the Scarborough Town Council approves the proposed one-year agreement during its April 15 meeting.

On Monday, the Cape Elizabeth Town Council voted unanimously to approve a money-saving proposal by Scarborough Town Manager Tom Hall to share Cape Elizabeth’s longtime assessor, Matt Sturgis, with Scarborough, and pay him a combined annual salary of $99,500, which Sturgis says is consistent with other markets. In Cape Elizabeth, Sturgis is now earning $83,450 a year.

Sturgis, who has been the tax assessor in Cape Elizabeth since February 2001, would spend about 40 percent of his time in Scarborough, where there are 16,038 real-estate and personal property accounts, and 60 percent in Cape Elizabeth, where there are 4,502 accounts.

While Cape Elizabeth would save $34,296 per year by sharing services, Scarborough would save nearly $60,000, Hall said on Tuesday. According to the draft proposal, Scarborough would agree to pay Cape Elizabeth $4,411 on a monthly basis. According to a cost breakdown on the Cape Elizabeth town website, both towns would spend $132,347 annually on the shared position including health insurance, training and other benefits under the agreement.

Hall said Scarborough would eliminate its full-time chief assessor position, held recently by William Healey, who resigned in February to become the tax assessor in Lewiston. Sturgis would work alongside Scarborough’s full-time deputy assessor, Susan Russo.

According to Cape Elizabeth Town Manager Mike McGovern, Hall first approached the town on March 17 regarding the collaboration. He said Sturgis would spend two days of his five-day workweek in Scarborough, and three days in Cape Elizabeth.

“Once it all gets finalized and the two agreements get signed,” said Sturgis, “I am looking forward to the scope and scale of the new assessment district that we’ll have to work with. I’m looking forward to working within the Scarborough market and Cape Elizabeth market and take advantage of the commonalities that exist between the two towns.”

But there will be some differences between the towns, presenting some new challenges for Sturgis.

“They are very competitive housing markets. Scarborough has the added attraction of the commercial real estate,” he said. “As a property valuation specialist, it’s kind of exciting to take a look at those properties as well. You’re talking about almost three and a half times the size of the assessment district than I have right now.”

The interlocal agreement will be effective upon whether the Scarborough Town Council votes to appoint Sturgis on April 15, McGovern said. The agreement would be automatically renewed after one year.

“It’s a really good fit for Cape Elizabeth and Scarborough,” said McGovern, during Monday’s council meeting. “In fact, when the Municipal Operations Review Committee was looking at opportunities a few years ago they particularly looked at Scarborough and thought it was a reasonable fit.”

But this would not be the first time Cape Elizabeth has shared services with another town. The city of Portland provides its dispatch services to Cape Elizabeth, and South Portland shares its animal control officer.

However, “This is the first interlocal agreement where we provide the service for one of our neighboring communities,” McGovern said.

Sturgis, a resident of Gray, also serves as the Cape Elizabeth staff liaison to the town’s Senior Citizen Advisory Commission. In addition, he is the chairman of the Gray Town Council, vice chairman of the Greater Portland Council of Governments and chairman of the Maine chapter of the American Lung Association. He also previously served as Auburn’s tax assessor.

According to Hall, Sturgis would not handle tax appeals pending from Scarborough’s 2012 reassessment of its waterfront properties. In 2012, a group of Scarborough waterfront homeowners sued the town because it refused to issue tax abatements, claiming that former assessor Paul Lesperance over-assessed their properties unfairly.

“He will be responsible for all the duties as though he is a full-time staff assessor of mine,” Hall said. “We carved out those 2012 assessments because they are so far along in their own process, and it’s not reasonable to expect him to come up to speed. Matt will be responsible for any other tax abatements that come forward.”

Matthew Sturgis