Municipal and school budgets across Maine are in turmoil as rising costs continue to force communities to balance school quality and tax burdens.
The cost of teachers, goods and transportation are rising, meaning it’s another fraught year for Maine schools pitching their budgets to voters and municipal officials. They’re asking for more money due to rising costs. Some places are having to confront thorny service reductions.
Here are three themes we’re noticing in the election-year debates.
Inflation and new costs have smacked schools.
School and town budgets are being strained by years of inflation. Costs have been rising for years and are unlikely to come down. Increased student needs are adding to the struggle as well. Maine’s special education costs are among the highest in the nation, and schools are required by federal law to pay for those accommodations.
At the Kennebunk-based Regional School Unit 21, staff benefits made up about 20% of a proposed budget increase, due in part to uncertain insurance premiums. Special education costs there are expected to decline somewhat in the district next year, though they will still account for $13 million of the nearly $65 million plan. Though residents so far rejected deeper cuts, the budget will reduce the net number of staff positions in the district.
Special education class sizes and needs can fluctuate dramatically from year to year. Last budget season, the small town of Jefferson struggled to fund its school after a majority of its incoming kindergarten class required special education accommodations.
Mainers are sick of rising property taxes.
Maine schools are primarily funded by property taxes raised at the local level, giving municipalities strong control over them. But as inflation is stretching personal budgets, taxpayers are resisting school budgets that could pull more out of their pockets.
The tension has roiled Augusta, where a more conservative city council has pushed for deep cuts while the more liberal school board warns that they may impact educational quality and outcomes. At a meeting last week, Councilor Kevin Judkins said he’d received two messages from residents planning to flee the capital city’s high taxes.
“Those people are as real as all of the stories of the kids,” he said. “Maybe even more so, because they are a quiet majority.”
Others have suggested that if school quality decreases, the city may have trouble attracting young residents, hollowing out the tax base. Councilor Courtney Gary-Allen, who had pushed for less severe cuts, said she’d heard “the exact opposite” of what Judkins reported from a resident.
“It’s somebody everybody at this table knows, who said the same exact thing, that they’re preparing to move from Augusta … because they want schools that are strong,” she said.
While Augusta continues to wrangle, others are moving forward with robust cuts. Oxford Hills School District proposed keeping spending flat with a budget that cut seven positions, including in instruction and administration. The latest budget proposal in Lewiston could cut roughly two dozen positions across that city’s district.
Fewer kids force tough conversations.
Most school funding discussions this year have focused at least partly on declining student populations. Maine has the highest median age of any state in the nation. Some schools are rapidly depopulating, meaning more taxpayers on fixed incomes are paying more per student.
In the 2016-2017 school year, there were nearly 181,000 publicly funded students in the state, according to Maine’s Department of Education. This school year, that population is down to about 169,000, with more decline expected over the coming decade.
Rural schools are being hit hard as communities struggle to attract young families. Talk of consolidation has sprung up in Wayne’s school district, where Republican gubernatorial candidate Bobby Charles lobbied school officials against closing despite demographic trends.
In Topsfield, voters recently decided to close the town’s elementary school after its student population dropped to just five. Keeping it open would have cost taxpayers nearly $500,000 dollars per year.
Daniel O’Connor is a Report for America corps member who covers rural government as part of the partnership between the Bangor Daily News and The Maine Monitor, with additional support from BDN and Monitor readers.
