After almost three months of meetings and close to $300,000 in proposed cuts, April 26 the RSU/MSAD 40 Budget Committee voted to send their original draft of the 2011-12 budget to the school board.
The $21,473,543 budget approved on April 26 removes about $288,901 in cuts added in the last few weeks. This budget is the draft administrators brought to the first budget committee meeting after the school board directed them to hold the overall increase to 3 percent.
The cuts removed in the approved draft of the budget came after the budget committee directed administrators to hold the local share of the budget to a 2.1 percent ($243,510) increase over last year.
The budget approved by the budget committee raises the towns’ contribution to the budget 4.58 percent ($531,108) over the current year’s budget. The total local share in the draft budget approve on April 26 is $12,126,864.65.
The school board, which comprises all the same members as the budget committee, will vote on the draft budget at their meeting Thurs., April 28 at 7 p.m. at Medomak Middle School in room 103.
However, as the school board, unlike the budget committee, the members’ votes are weighted based on their towns’ share of the budget.
The budget committee voted 6-5-4 (four abstentions). At least three of the five Waldoboro members voted against the draft. If the same vote were taken at the school board, it would have failed based on the weighted votes, said budget committee member Ron Dolloff.
“We think the increase is too much for the economy as it is,” said budget committee member Francis Cross after the meeting. Cross and Dolloff believe the budget approved by the budget committee will fail at the school board vote, and the draft of the budget including all the cuts, will pass.
The draft Cross is referring to includes $288,901 in cuts.
The cuts include several staff positions, totaling $219,500 in savings, an $8000 reduction to summer curriculum development hours for teachers, a $12,000 cut to the technology budget, a $10,000 cut to special education and nearly $50,000 in cuts from miscellaneous books, supplies and materials throughout the district, said Supt. Frank Boynton.
The positions cut from that draft are:
• A full-time librarian, for a savings of $60,000. This cut is in addition to another librarian position that was cut from the initial drafts of the budget. This will leave the district with one librarian who will travel between the district’s seven schools.
• Half of an assistant principal position, for a savings of $34,500. Currently, that position is full-time and services the Union, Prescott and Miller elementary schools. Under the draft budget, that position will only service the Miller School, 2.5 days per week, Boynton said.
• A half of a physical education position, for a savings of $30,000, a half of a music position, for a savings of $30,000, and a full-time teaching position, for a savings of $65,000. At this point, these positions would simply be removed from the budget, so no decisions regarding from which grade or school the positions would be removed have been made, Boynton said.
There are nine teachers retiring after this school year, Boynton said. Even with the proposed reductions from the budget, “I anticipate hiring to fill open positions next year,” Boynton said.
Once the school board approves a budget, it will go before voters at a public meeting Tues., June 7. At that meeting, held open town meeting style, voters will have an opportunity to amend budget articles prior to voting on them.
After the budget is approved at the public meeting, it will go to a ratification vote in each town. The ratification vote will be held Tues., June 14, and will be a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote on the total budget.
