The Kennebec Valley Council of Governments has hired a regional code enforcement officer, Jeff Drew, to enforce building regulations across several rural Somerset County towns.

Drew’s new pilot position could help those rural communities cope with growing code enforcement demands, with fewer people joining the quickly changing profession.

“The need is not going away — it’s getting worse,” Jessie Cyr, KVCOG’s community and economic development director, said. “There’s less people in the field because these guys are getting older and would like to enjoy retirement. But the codes are changing in the state, too, and making requirements that these towns need to meet that maybe weren’t meeting them before.”

Drew’s services will be available for any Somerset County town with fewer than 4,000 people, excluding only Skowhegan, Madison and Fairfield. Cyr said more than a dozen municipalities, from Brighton Plantation to Solon, have already expressed interest.

Every municipality is required to employ a code enforcement officer, per state law, to enforce state laws and local ordinances on shoreland zoning, land use, plumbing, waste disposal and building code. Developments can be delayed for months if their town has no qualified code enforcement officer.

Outside of New England, code enforcement is often a county-level position. But Maine’s emphasis on municipal control means even the smallest towns must fund this position.

As of mid-September, more than a dozen towns across the state were advertising vacant code enforcement positions on the Maine Municipal Association’s website.

“There seems to be not a lot of younger people coming into this field,” Cyr said. “And we have been told by some of the towns that (do have code enforcement officers), that they’re looking to retire also, but they’ve stayed in the job because they don’t want to leave the town in a lurch.”

The lack of new candidates means many code officers already work for multiple towns.

Drew worked full-time in Madison and part-time in Anson and Solon before he was hired by KVCOG. Keegan Ballard, one of Augusta’s code enforcement officers, works part-time in Manchester and Sidney.

The position was initially expected to be funded for several government associations across rural Maine by a nearly $2 million federal grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but the grant program was canceled by the Trump administration in early April.

KVCOG leaders thought the position was too critical to give up, Cyr said, and agreed to fund the position anyway, with $15,000 coming from the Somerset County Commissioners.

Code enforcement had already been identified years ago as a crucial regional need for rural communities, she said. Somerset County towns needed a regionalized position — federal money or not.

Cyr said KVCOG now has an opportunity to pilot the position to identify snags and make the regionalizing process sustainable across the state.

The organization has also heard from member towns that other town positions can be difficult to fill — most notably animal control officers. This pilot may set the stage for other regionalizing efforts, Cyr said, helping to fill vacancies and make local governments more efficient.

Although Madison no longer directly employs Drew, he will continue filling in until the town hires a new full-time officer, Town Manager Denise Ducharme said.

The regional position, Ducharme said, could help small towns across Somerset County benefit from the same expertise Madison has used for years.

“It’s an opportunity for the smaller communities — Anson, Solon, Bingham, Jackman, Greenville — to have access to that level of expertise and knowledge,” Ducharme said. “It’s costly, but it’s going to be much more cost effective in a regional setting for them than it would be if they tried to do it on their own.”

The funding mechanism is simple, Cyr said: Towns will redirect what they would have spent on their own code enforcement officer position to KVCOG. In Solon, that will be about $6,200. In New Portland, it will be $3,000. Brighton Plantation appropriated $12,500 in its most recent budget for a code enforcement officer, even while the position was vacant.

Once Drew has held the position for about 18 months, KVCOG will reevaluate town spending levels — at which point Cyr said she expects costs for some towns to decrease.

Recruitment and training are a big part of Drew’s vision for the pilot program; he said he hopes to mentor code enforcement officers to help fill empty roles across the state.

Having already worked with developers and construction industry leaders, Drew said he should have a solid base to recruit from.

He said he wants to give the knowledge he’s gained from serving in several rural towns — including changes in energy code and new state laws overhauling zoning — to the next generation of code enforcement officers.

“There’s other code enforcement officers that have trained me,” Drew said. “I can train a carpenter to look at plumbing. I can train a plumber to look at carpentry. And then showing them the paperwork that needs to go with it.”