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To: Members of the Board of Directors From: Mike Cormier and the Budget Sub-Committee of the Board Re: Proposed Budget for 2012-2013 Date: April 10, 2012 Well it is that time of year when I have to put to paper an explanation and rationale for the proposed budget. I often refer to Dickens and the famous quote from A Tale of Two Cities because we seem to repeatedly find ourselves between “the best of time and the worst of times.” This upcoming year all of the funds we have received from the Federal Government (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Jobs Bill/Stimulus, Local Entitlement Funds-Special Education) are no longer available. Although we tried not to fund positions with these funds, some of the Ed Jobs bill money had to be used for positions. The valuation for the towns in the district continues to grow at three times the rate of the State. Funds we have received from MaineCare (Medicaid) for some of our special needs students have gone from over $350,000 per year down to about $40,000. Unfortunately, the programs and staffing to continue to education these children continues to exist. So, that is a part of the “worst of times” news. On “the best of times,” we have received a significant increase in our school subsidy, although the majority of it is committed to the construction projects. Our student enrollment has stabilized. Also, if the voters of Starks and this district vote to combine we will see a fairly significant increase in revenue as some of the children from Starks begin to attend Mt. Regional School District Schools. Prior to beginning the process of building a budget the budget committee spent some time discussing and establishing goals to guide the process. Budget Goals/Priorities 1. Maintain or lower teacher-pupil ratios within our schools 2. Support curricula development by funding professional development, purchase of materials and providing extra time. 3. Support upgrades and advancements in the area of technology 4. Support and increase services/staffing in special education. Personnel/Staff Goals/Priorities 1. Maintain status quo for personnel/staffing 2. Special Education Staffing at appropriate levels (Techs, Behavior Specialist/Social Worker) 3. Director of Curriculum position becomes full time 4. Keep math interventionist positions 5. Increase and provide additional staffing to support technology Budget Increase/Taxes 1. Request an increase to support district needs. We were able to maintain our balance forward at the same level as 2011-2012. Our MaineCare reimbursement dropped from $250,000 to $125,000. The only reason we could keep it at $125,000 was because we banked revenue from prior years anticipating a substantial reduction at some point in time. The bank is about empty, so I anticipate that there will be a further decrease in MaineCare next year. State revenue increased by over $2.9 million although $2.6 million goes to cover debt service for the Mallett School and Mt. Blue Campus. In keeping with our goals and priorities we built a budget that figured out to be an increase of $1.6 million over the current operating budget. This figure does not include debt service. The committee worked diligently and pared the budget by over $600,000 dollars. Fixed cost increases for insurances (health/buildings/buses), negotiated salaries (negotiating three contracts this year), facility and grounds repairs, heating fuel and diesel oil account for about $800,000 of the increase. The MEA gave us a firm figure for health insurance increases, so we were able to remove some of the money we budgeted in anticipation of cost increases. Money saved on retirements was also removed from the budget. Even with all of these cuts we still had to remove two teaching positions from the budget (1 math interventionist and 1 reading specialist). There were four teaching positions that had been funded with Federal Jobs Bill money. Initially, all four were included in the budget but as the committee worked and worked to reduce the increase it became evident that two of the positions should be eliminated. It is the committee’s desire to reinstate these positions if additional savings can be found. Two math interventionist positions and seven reading specialists positions have been retained. Reductions made in school supplies, textbook accounts, and materials have been continued for another year. Money to repair facilities was reduced with a plan to do some projects in pieces (roof job at Cape Cod Hill School). Money for technology maintenance and staffing was also reduced from what was requested. A small increase was budgeted in technology. The extended day and year programs that have been funded through Federal funds have been reduced and portions of both will be funded through the local school budget. Summer programming for students with special needs was also added to the local budget due to reductions in Federal dollars.. Mt. Blue Regional School District continues to be a high effective and efficient school system. We rank 179th out of 225 public school systems in the State. This means that over 79.5% of the school systems in the State spend more to educate their children than we do. Another comparison that is used is to look at our elementary (K-8) and secondary (9-12) tuition rates, which are set by the Department of Education for all school systems. At the K-8 level we are allowed to charge $953 less than State average and $1,579 less than State average for students in grade 9-12. One might wonder why we don’t charge more. The rate is set by the State and based upon how much we have spent in certain categories 2010-2011. Now there are folks who might think that the two preceding paragraphs are something in which to be proud, but I have to caution that at some point we are reaching a level where we are diminishing the quality of education for children within our school system. The board in the past has worked to present responsible budgets that attempt to maintain educational opportunities for children. The amount requested in the proposed budget is needed to maintain class size, programming, and classroom teachers. Further reductions have the potential of significantly diminishing the quality of the educational programs offered, which in turn spills over into a negative impact in the private sector.
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