The voters of RSU/MSAD 40 approved the proposed school budget at a town-meeting-style hearing on June 1 at Medomak Valley High School. All articles in the budget passed with no alterations and limited discussion.
John Black moderated the meeting, which was attended by 72 voters.
The approved $20,867,957 budget includes the elimination of seven teaching and administrative positions.
The budget must now go to a ballot for final approval, voted on in the individual towns, on Tues., June 8.
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/MSAD 40 Superintendent’s office.
Printed material about the budget will be available at polling places, according to the report.
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 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 in the 2011 budget.
At the budget hearing, the only discussion was about the first article, the appropriation for regular instruction. The article, which eventually passed as written, calls for $8,078,570 for regular instruction.
A motion was made at the hearing to increase that amount by $56,120, the cost of staffing a second art teaching position.
Prior to the budget hearing, it was announced that one of the art teachers at MVHS was being moved to one of the district elementary schools. This announcement was met with public protest from parents, teachers and former MVHS students who felt the elimination of an art teacher would seriously detract from the educational experience of students at MVHS, said Waldoboro resident Steve Cartwright, who made the motion to increase the budget.
The motion to increase the regular instruction budget was an attempt to reinstate that teacher.
However, that could not have been accomplished simply by adding money to the budget, said RSU 40 school board chairwoman Bonnie Davis-Micue at the hearing.
“Staffing is controlled by the district, not the public,” Davis-Micue said during the hearing.
The district waited until class enrollment for next school year had been completed before making the decision to move the teaching position, Davis-Micue said. Although class size will increase, the art curriculum will not change, she said.
The motion to increase the budget failed by a vote of 32 to 26, and the article passed by a wide margin. There was almost no discussion about any other items in the budget.
After the hearing, Davis-Micue said even if additional money had passed, it’s unlikely it would have been used to reinstate the art teaching position.
“That money would have gone into the regular instruction budget and been used wherever it was needed most,” Davis-Micue said. The elementary schools need the extra budget more than the high school, she said.
“The high school gets all attention because it’s your centerpiece,” she said. “But when we’re struggling to keep elementary school classes under 21 or 22 kids, I’m not in favor of putting resources towards keeping high school classes at 14 or 15 kids.”
