The Nobleboro School Committee presented a proposal to the Nobleboro Budget Committee, Jan 21, that would increase the local budget by 5.35 percent, if it gains voter approval. That presentation was prefaced by a statement from school committee chairman Joshua Hatch outlining the effects of the governor’s Dec. 27, 2012 curtailment order that is projected to reduce the current year’s overall state budget by $35.5 million.
Hatch said efforts by Gov. Paul LePage, to reduce the state tax burden, amount to an increase in property taxes at the local level. He said zero-based budgeting, as versus the needs-based budgeting that schools have traditionally done, is “imaginary.”
For a minimum receiver town such as Nobleboro, the state subsidy would drop from 35 percent of the total budget, as calculated from two years previous, to 30 percent. For Nobleboro, that means a reduction in state aid of $12,485. The governor is proposing to maintain this reduction at a flat rate for at least two years beyond the curtailment already enacted for the current year’s budget.
LePage has proposed taking municipally-collected excise tax out of town coffers to be used in the state budget and suggested the state require towns to pay half the cost of the state’s share of retirement benefits for teachers and other school employees. This would add up to 7.65 percent of those employees’ wages.
According to Alternative Organizational Structure 93 Business Manager Katherine Hunt, that amounts to 7.65 percent of salaries or wages for teachers and other staff who participate in the Maine Public Employees Retirement System.
“They always talk about cutting spending, but really, they’re just shifting,” Hatch said.
“It’s a shell game,” Nobleboro Budget Committee Chairman Richard Powell said.
Almost half of LePage’s proposed reductions, $12.6 million, is projected to come from reductions in education funding. The Dept. of Health and Human Services will see a $13.4 million cut, with reductions also expected in the budgets of the University of Maine System, the Dept. of Corrections, the Dept. of Administrative and Financial Services, the Maine Community College System, and the Dept. of Public Safety.
