The board-approved budget for RSU 40 includes a 4.97 percent overall increase for 2015-2016, and a drop in anticipated state subsidy means towns would shoulder 80 percent of the $1.1 million budget increase.
The Regional School Unit 40 Board of Directors approved a budget proposed at $24,032,456.26, up $1,138,886.46 or 4.97 percent over the current year, at the board’s March 19 meeting.
The increase exceeds a board goal of a 3.5 percent increase for the proposed budget, but includes essentially all of the priority items Superintendent Steve Nolan proposed for next year.
The changes include salary increases for contractual and non-contractual employees totaling $565,000; $178,000 for teacher incentive funds; a $100,000 expansion of the district’s pre-kindergarten program; a new social worker position at $75,000; $10,000 for field trips; and $10,000 for the high school’s new varsity football team, among other items.
“The budget addresses a number of needs that we have … and what we’re really trying to do with this is begin to close the gap regionally” on per-pupil education spending, Nolan said March 20.
Comparing per-pupil expenditures among Midcoast districts, RSU 40 is “well behind, I’d say near or at the bottom,” Nolan said.
During his initial budget presentation this year, Nolan shared a chart of per-pupil expenditures for the 2012-2013 school year of other districts and towns in the area.
At $10,168 per pupil that year, RSU 40 is far behind several island communities’ expenditures, but also trails a number of local mainland school systems such as Edgecomb, Nobleboro, and Jefferson by roughly $2,000 and Bristol and Great Salt Bay CSD by about $1,000, according to the chart.
The state average for that year was $10,021 per pupil, according to the chart.
“One piece to consider is in the end we asked our cost center heads, mostly our principals, to maintain the current level of funding on pretty much everything they could,” Nolan said, adding that a number of requests never made it before the board.
“I think in the end our board members recognized the items on the list as needs and were supportive of it,” he said.
Most board members present at the March 19 meeting did vote in favor of the budget. One new board member from Warren, Dorothy Robinson, abstained from voting; board Chair Danny Jackson, of Waldoboro, voted against it.
“I just think the increase is too high and I feel that we should bring a lower budget to the voters,” Jackson said when reached March 24. “Do I think the stuff is needed? Yes, but I just think the increase is too high for this year.”
A number of staffing changes proposed for next year remain as originally presented, Nolan said. The changes are intended to be “cost neutral,” he said previously.
With an anticipated reduction of $188,122.53 in state subsidy for the coming school year, the district’s five member towns – Waldoboro, Friendship, Washington, Warren, and Union – would each shoulder increases greater than the 4.97 percent overall increase.
According to RSU 40 Business Manager Karla Miller, an increase in the mil rate the state uses to calculate required local contributions to education had the effect of reducing subsidy for the district.
Had the mil rate remained the same, RSU 40 would have received a $253,000 increase in subsidy, rather than a roughly $188,000 decrease, Miller said.
Including the decrease in subsidy, the district’s anticipated general revenues from things like tuition and MaineCare reimbursements would increase only a net of $217,973.47, or 2.2 percent, leaving towns to shoulder the remainder of the overall budget increase, or $920,912.99.
The anticipated assessments are: Waldoboro, $4,916,909.39, up $375,495.78 or 8.27 percent; Washington, $1,399,267.55, up $109,203.93 or 8.47 percent; Union, $2,068,301.06, up $114,702.04 or 5.87 percent; Warren, $3,692,897.99, up $204,019.42 or 5.85 percent; and Friendship, $1,831,844.31, up $117,491.82 or 6.85 percent.
The proposed amounts for the budget’s cost centers are:
- Regular instruction: $8,991,114, up $509,228 or 6 percent
- Special education: $4,463,581, up $360,307 or 8.78 percent
- Career and technical education: $788,931, up $80,149 or 11.31 percent
- Other instruction: $432,736, up $36,634 or 9.25 percent
- Student and staff support: $2,008,220, up $79,458 or 4.12 percent
- System administration: $630,473, up $36,173 or 6.09 percent
- School administration: $1,489,826, up $45,488 or 3.15 percent
- Transportation: $1,720,738, up $56,266 or 3.38 percent
- Facilities and maintenance: $2,188,599, up $102,438 or 4.91 percent
- Debt service: $1,293,238, down $167,253 or 11.45 percent
- All other expenditures: $25,000, flat
The district-wide budget meeting where voters can approve changes to the budget categories is planned for May 12, and the budget validation referendum is planned for June 9.
“As we continue to refine this and share information, we’ll firm up those dates and times and get that information distributed,” Nolan said of the budget timeline.
