This story first appeared in the Midcoast Update, a newsletter published every Tuesday and Friday. Sign up here to receive stories about the midcoast delivered to your inbox each week, along with our other newsletters.
After residents of the Searsport and Stockton Springs school district rejected two proposed budgets, officials are drafting a third, $12 million budget proposal that they say won’t increase spending at all.
Among other things, the newest budget for Regional School Unit 20 will leave several open positions unfilled, cutting $240,000 from the previous spending plan, Superintendent Laura Miller said. The district includes Searsport elementary, middle and high school.
Residents rejected the previous two budget proposals in districtwide votes between June and August. Both of those proposals increased spending compared with last year’s $12 million budget, with the first totaling $12.5 million and the second $12.29 million.
RSU 20 is one of several school districts across Maine that have seen multiple budget proposals rejected this summer amid a wave of frustration among residents about rising costs and taxes.
Miller argued that the frustration over rising school costs in RSU 20 is misplaced, given that several factors contribute to tax increases. She noted the role that recent property revaluations can also play in taxes going up for some people.
“I think that’s been the challenge, that we have tax bills that are coming out from the town,” Miller said. “We can’t speak to the tax bills, we can only speak to our school budget.”
According to Miller, the district was previously able to reduce spending between the first and second budget proposals by $161,000 using funding through the federal Title I program to pay for some positions that were originally slated to be locally funded. That allowed the district to avoid cutting any positions.
Voters rejected that second budget on Aug. 12 by just 15 votes, 174 to 189. While voters in Searsport narrowly approved of the budget — with five more yes than no votes — Stockton Springs opposed it 107-84.
At a meeting on Aug. 26, the district’s board approved the additional $240,000 in reductions by not filling two elementary classroom teacher positions and one classroom ed tech position, which Miller said was “tied to lower-than-expected August enrollment numbers.”
Those positions were vacant after teachers previously left or retired.
“No one lost their job. They were positions that I was not able to fill for two reasons: low enrollment, and we didn’t have anybody applying to those positions,” Miller said.
The district will hold a budget meeting on Sept. 24 for a preliminary vote on the proposed new total. If it passes, then the public would then vote on it Nov. 4.
For now, the district will operate using last year’s budget until a new one is approved.
