To the Editor:
Saturday’s education budget meeting in Windsor set a budget that many will not be able to afford. The end result for each of the eight member towns in the RSU will be a 17.75 percent increase ($2,225,130) in the funds they need to raise in property taxes to pay for the increase in the budget.
As most towns expend about 60 percent (or more) of their town budgets on education, the result will be about a 10 percent increase in property tax bills for most residents. With many residents hit hard by the recession, and having less income, this increase will be painful. For the RSU, there was no pain to be shared. All articles passed with no cuts.
Inexplicably, the actual costs expended in the last fiscal year (ending in June) could not or would not be shared with the voters on Saturday. Consequently, the budget approved was presented as increases relative to the budget for last year, which was developed well over a year ago.
The only clue provided to what was actually spent last year was the amount that was conservatively estimated to be left unspent (the “carryover”) from last year, which was reported to be $1,447,954, excluding carryover from two years ago.
That means a maximum of $24,479,162 was spent last year, and likely less. For this year the request was $26,613,497 or $2,134,335 more than what we just spent. With declining enrollment, lower administration costs and other expected savings through consolidation; it just doesn’t make sense to be increasing the authorization by 8.72 percent over last year’s estimated spending rate.
This is especially true since the budget presented had been credited with $436,895 in federal stimulus funds, which are temporary. Without those funds, the real local taxpayer obligation would have been $2,662,025 or 21 percent higher than last year.
The approved budget now forms a new spending baseline and, with further State support cuts expected next year – and stimulus funds going away, even more property tax increases can be expected. Taxpayers just can’t afford it.
Dennis Dunbar, Westport Island
