After voters shot down the proposed $26.5 million budget last month as too high, the Sheepscot Valley RSU 12 board of directors approved a $26.4 million budget that would require nearly $450,000 less from the district’s towns.
The budget has had a rocky time this year as the board tried to whittle down an approximately $2 million increase that officials said would have been needed to keep the district as it was during the just-ended school year.
Various cuts were proposed, opposed, and replaced with others before a budget was approved by the board. Some residents proposed a further $350,000 across-the-board cut at the district budget meeting in early June. The $350,000 cut failed to pass, but the budget passed at that meeting failed to pass at referendum on June 28 with 65 percent of voters saying it was too high.
The RSU 12 Finance Committee’s latest attempt at the budget totals $26,395,203, a $116,000 reduction from the failed budget. The cuts in the budget limit the total increase to 2.44 percent, down from 2.89 percent, but the bigger impact comes in the share local towns would need to raise.
The proposed budget includes cuts to central office staff, a potential pay to play system for non-varsity sports, and the reduction over five teaching positions and 3.5 educational technician positions. Once-considered arts and music cuts have been fully restored in this proposal, according to RSU 12 Superintendent Howard Tuttle.
Towns would see an increase of $663,850 or 4.62 percent on their share of the budget if it is approved, bringing the total to $15,033,436 for both the minimum required amount to receive full state subsidy and the town’s additional local amount. The increase is $445,629 less than the $1,110,004 local increase in the failed budget.
Tuttle said in an interview July 3 the impact on the local share was reduced because the RSU is receiving $328,659 more state subsidy in the approved state budget than the $90,070 reduction that was originally expected.
The district is also able to save $150,000 budget for vocational education because Capital Area Technical Center is billing the state instead of the district this year, Tuttle said. The money will eventually come out of RSU 12’s state subsidy, but it appears as a savings for this year, he said.
The district approved a new cost formula for towns’ share of the budget based on cost per student, which includes a so-called safety net to phase in the impacts of the shifting burden over four years. Under the new formula, the local shares for the district’s eight towns under the propose budget are:
Alna, $917,661, an increase of $22,389 or 2.5 percent.
Chelsea, $2,002,415, an increase of $85,615 or 4.47 percent.
Palermo, $1,564,917, an increase of $174,663 or 12.56 percent.
Somerville, $450,406, an increase of $35,531 or 8.56 percent.
Westport Island, $1,151,667, a decrease of $64,984 or 5.34 percent.
Whitefield, $2,104,645, an increase of $110,370 or 5.53 percent.
Windsor, $1,754,566, an increase of $246,665 or 16.36 percent.
Wiscasset, $5,087,160, an increase of $54,127 or 1.08 percent.
At the board meeting, Chelsea member Barbara Skeehan voiced concerns that the public will only look at the final number of the budget and see the $116,000 reduction. With such a small reduction to the total, people will think cuts were not considered in response to their opinion that the budget was too high, and will not look at the reduction to the local share, she said.
Whitefield member Joan Morin said the opinion question on the budget was not clear whether people thought it was too high in total or in local share, but her feeling from the budget meeting was that people did not want such a large added burden to the towns.
Somerville member Chris Johnson said he feels the overall budget is close to what people asked for in the budget process, and the reduction to the towns’ share needs to be communicated.
“I don’t think we do a good job in communicating to people what they are paying for,” said Palermo member Don Barrett. The superintendent and central office are “derelict in their duty” of letting the public know why a $26 million budget should be supported.
Chair Hilary Holm, of Whitefield, agreed that the district needs better communication.
The board voted 12 to 4 to pass the budget.
Barrett, who was among those voting against the budget, said he voted against the budget because of the communication issue.
“I won’t endorse something I think is done improperly. It’s not the number,” he said.
Skeehan and fellow Chelsea member Pam Wiswell said they both voted no because they feel budget is still too high.
The board set the new district budget meeting for Tuesday, Aug. 13 at Whitefield Elementary School at 7 p.m., and the subsequent budget validation referendum for Tuesday, Sept. 10.
