Voters will consider the proposed RSU 40 school budget at a regional budget meeting 7 p.m. on June 1 at Medomak Valley High School.
The meeting is the public’s final opportunity to amend the proposed $20,867,957 budget, which includes the elimination of seven teaching and administrative positions, before the budget goes to a referendum vote in the RSU member towns June 8
The RSU 40 School Board voted unanimously to approve the proposed budget March 31.
The ballot vote will be a yes or no question asking, “Do you approve the budget that was adopted at the regional budget meeting on June 1, 2010?” The referendum item will not contain the amount of the budget, according to a budget report released by the RSU 40 Superintendent’s office.
Printed material about the budget will be available at polling places, according to the report.
As presented, the 2011 proposed budget is a .5 percent decrease from the 2010 budget of $20,963,958. The total state subsidy for the 2011 budget is $8,897,235, a .4 percent decrease from last year’s contribution of $8,935,095.
The local contribution to the 2011 budget is $11,595,722, a 1.97 percent decrease from last year’s contribution of $11,828,862.
In all, there are 14 positions that have been eliminated in the proposed 2011 budget. Seven of those are new cuts, and seven are positions that were not filled for the 2009/10 school year and have been eliminated from the budget.
The total savings from reductions in staff is $526,605.
“We had a handful of retirements last fall,” said school superintendent Frank Boynton. “We took a hard look at the district and our enrollment and decided not to fill those positions.”
The seven new cuts in the 2011 budget include a teacher at the Miller School, two teachers at the Warren Community School, 60 percent of a guidance position at Medomak Middle School, a Medomak Valley High School art teacher, half of the principal position at Union Elementary and an administrative assistant in the central office.
The positions being cut for the 2011 budget result in a savings of $302,598 for the district.
“I’m not happy about what we’re doing, but it seems like the responsible thing to do for the district and the budget,” said Bonnie Davis-Micue, chairwoman of the school board. Outside the staff cuts, there are no dramatic changes from the 2010 budget, Boynton said.
“We tried to hold the line with costs from last year,” Boynton said.
The cost of fuel went up, and there has been a two percent increase in the cost of health insurance, which Boynton said are the two primary increases in cost from the 2010 budget.
There is a 30 percent increase in the School Board’s budget for 2011. This increase does not reflect an increase in board members’ salaries, Boynton said. The board’s increased budget is to cover projects they are working on, such as renegotiating teachers’ contracts and updating the district’s insurance coverage, Boynton said.
There have been some changes to what programs the local school budget will cover, as some costs have been moved from federal funding to local funding.
There are nearly 20 percent increases in both the Director of Education and Technology budgets for this year. These increases reflect the district picking up much of the cost of books and other programs this year. Last year, these costs were covered with federal money.
The federal money was part of the government’s stimulus package and will not be available for the 2012 budget.
“We’re trying to step down our use of the federal money,” Boynton said. “We don’t want to hit a cliff and take on all those costs at once.”
The district expects to receive $601,406 in stimulus dollars for this year, much of which will be used for building construction, Boynton said. The total construction cost will be $476,406, according to the superintendent’s budget report.
The district has a five-year plan for building construction and updates, which they will get a head start on this summer, while the federal money is available, Boynton said. “We’re trying to bring all the facilities up to par,” Boynton said.
The federal money will also be used to buy laptops for all grade 9-12 students, a $75,000 expense, and a district-wide replacement of older textbooks, $50,000, according to the report.
At the final meeting of the RSU 40 Budget Committee on March 30, which comprises the same membership as the school board, they eliminated funding for a new athletic scoreboard at Medomak Middle School.
The committee voted to remove it because “given that we’re cutting teachers, and principals are cutting supplies,” paying for a scoreboard didn’t seem responsible, Davis-Micue said.
The local shares for towns in RSU 40 in the 2011 budget, as approved by the school board, are: Waldoboro: $4,175648; Friendship: $1,499,830; Union: $1,802,009; Warren: $2,974,593; and Washington: $1,143,641.
These numbers represent a decrease in local share for every town in the district except Union, which is facing a one percent increase from their 2010 contribution. Union had a 13.5 percent increase in their student population.
Waldoboro has a 3.2 percent decrease in their local share this year – the second largest decrease behind Washington – despite a three percent increase in their student population. Only Waldoboro and Union have increases in their student population for 2011.
