FARMINGTON – Roughly 200 voters approved a $37.1 million budget at a district-wide meeting Tuesday evening, as well as having Regional School Unit 9 join a regional service center.
The $37,125,036 budget represents an increase of $1.58 million or 4.44 percent over the current fiscal year. If validated at the June 11 vote, the budget would result in a local tax increase of $36,050, or .27 percent over the entire district.
In a presentation provided prior to the voters taking up the warrant with moderator Ron Aseltine, Superintendent Tina Meserve said that the budget would maintain existing programming, including teaching positions added last year due to additional students entering the district, and added additional supports for students. The budget utilized more than $1 million in additional state subsidy, Meserve said, with that increase related to the 118 students RSU 9 had added in the past two years and rising Special Education costs.
“We have a responsibility to make sure that every dollar we spend is spent well,” Meserve said.
Historically, local assessments decreased by 2 percent in 2016-17, decreased by 2 percent in 2017-18, increased by 6.25 percent in 2018-19 (the current fiscal year) and the proposed budget would increase the local assessment by .27 percent this year.
Increases include adding a currently-active Cape Cod Hill School teaching position to the budget, after funding the position out of contingency this year, a half-time social worker position at Mt. Blue High School, a two-day-a-week nurse at W.G. Mallett, increasing a secretary position at Mt. Blue Middle School to full time and a behavioral ed tech interventionist and a quarter-time social worker at Cape Cod Hill School.
The budget also includes 2.5 percent increases in salary for teachers and 5 percent for support staff.
Special Education is expected to increase by $575,000, or 10.38 percent, to meet the needs of students within the district. Noting that Special Education costs had doubled since 2015, Meserve said that while the state had recognized the district’s Special Education needs, state funding was still catching up. The district did receive an additional $292,000 in Special Education funding from the state this year.
The budget includes reforming the Pathway for All Learners program at the grade 3 to 5 level, by hiring a social worker and a Board Certified Behavior Specialist instead of the previously envisioned Special Education teacher and three ed techs. Instead of transporting students to a central location like the K to 2 program, the grade 3 to 5 program would bring services to students in their specific schools.
Two buses would be purchased if the budget were approved as presented. The combined cost to the district for both buses would be $51,000 on a $206,000 purchase thanks to the Volkswagen emissions scandal settlement, which would pay the bulk of the cost. Facility improvements would include safety upgrades such as cameras, doors, Americans with Disability Act playground equipment and traffic studies at Cascade Brook School, MBMS and MBHS.
If the budget is validated as proposed, Chesterville will see a $8,723 increase, or .83 percent; Farmington will see a $50,102 increase, or 1.05 percent; Industry will see a $8,695 increase, or .94 percent; New Sharon will see a decrease of $3,201, or a reduction of .31 percent; New Vineyard will see an increase of $21,846, or 2.94 percent; Starks will see an increase of $17,989, or 3.88 percent; Temple will see an increase of $7,347 or 1.73 percent; Vienna will see an increase of $8,559 or 1.19 percent; Weld will see a decrease of $27,352, a reduction of 5.22 percent; and Wilton will see a decrease of $56,657, or a reduction of 2.01 percent.
The Adult Education budget will increase from $398,000 to $423,000. The impact on the local allocation is an increase of $7,818.
Voters cast written ballots for Article 14, which raises local funding for the budget, with 190 in favor and 9 opposed.
More information on the budget can be found here by clicking on the “Mt. Blue RSD Budget Information 2019-2020” link. This includes budget presentations and documents, as well as video from the budget meetings.
Voters decided to have the district join the newly-created Western Maine Regional Service Center as a founding member, qualifying RSU 9 to recoup $104,000 in lost state subsidy in future fiscal years. While the state may move to eliminate that penalty, Meserve said, she still believed the service center was worth joining for other benefits, such as having the state pick up the cost of the state’s student information system. As currently envisioned, RSU 9 would participate in professional development opportunities, similar to how it currently participates in the Western Maine Education Collaborative. RSU 9 would also participate in some Gifted & Talented program opportunities, Meserve said.
Voters also provided permission to the school board to spend additional state funds received after the budget meeting. Those funds could be used for additional programming, to fund reserve accounts or used to reduce the local education assessment.
That article relates to an issue that occurred last year where the district received additional funds for the Foster Regional and Applied Technology Center but couldn’t spend them due to a lack of voter approval. Those funds will be used this year to support Foster Tech programming, as Career and Technical Education funding is now separate from the rest of the budget.
The validation referendum will be held in all 10 towns on June 11. The referendum is a yes/no vote: a ‘yes’ vote validates the budget passed Tuesday while a ‘no’ vote rejects it, effectively starting over the process.
Great!
It’s unfortunate the budget vote was scheduled on a night that multiple towns have regularly scheduled select board meetings despite requests to move the date.
The time is here to move this process into the light. Let’s review the books and find out why our costs have risen out of control in recent years.
Until the whole public becomes concerned and active, we all will get less than we deserve…parents, students and all tax payers alike.
Thank you having the budget discussions for preparing the budget in open public meetings, presenting the budget to the entire board in a public meeting, and to the citizens in a public meeting. The budget brief given before the votes last night was informative.
During all of the open public sessions, there were few people attending, and even fewer asking questions, so this years budget process has been pretty low keyed, and accessible.
Kind of good to see long term cost controls in place, but looks like we need to be careful so we do not lose people to districts that pay more.
I saw in one of the budget handouts that our per pupil costs are lower than most school systems in Maine, being lower than 201 systems….out of about 242 systems? Wow!
Nice to see a pretty small local tax increase.
It doesn’t matter when it is scheduled there will always be conflicts for someone.
The fact of the matter is that if it is important enough to you then you will make the time. I worked from 6-2, attended a Lacrosse game in the pouring rain (froze), and still went to the meeting. No questions were asked by any of the people voting no, of which there were only 9.
There have been plenty of opportunities for the public to come and ask questions. From what I’ve seen those opportunities have not been taken advantage of and very few questions have been asked.
Flawed – This process has been very much in the light and transparent for months. I suggest you look at the information sent to each household, and if you were at the meeting you’d have heard a presentation of exactly what the money is being spent on. You can also click in the link in the article. There is no way one can say spending is “out of control.” Taxes are only going up on average of 0.27% this year, and two of the three years before they went down.
Most of the increases are very clearly explained: with 80% of the budget for personnel, salary increases are a large part. Yet our people are still below regional average and we often lose people to neighboring districts. Having more students each year (we’re lucky to be growing because of the quality of our schools while most rural Maine communities are declining) means it costs more. More faculty and staff need to be added, computers purchased, support materials, etc. The good news – that and increased special education costs are recognized by the state as being needed (indeed mandated) and thus state funding covers most of that. Increased state funding is one reason the district doesn’t need to ask taxpayers for much of an increase at all. Indeed, so much spending is government mandated that our discretionary spending is relatively low.
The School Board had an extremely hard working budget committee with open meeteings and presentations as the budget was being set. Superintendent Tina Meserve has been dedicated to transparency and a fiscally conservative approach. I think if anyone looks closely at the budget, where the money is coming from, and what it is spent on, they’ll realize it’s a lean budget. Sure, there may be disagreement about particular programs. Some don’t like funding athletics and music. But there are no hidden books that need to be opened, you have a Superintendent, a School Board President and a School Board committed to transparency and answering questions.
Flawed is right: There were multiple meetings of select boards in the district last night. They were Farmington and Vienna.
Farmington had one person from the general public at its meeting. Not sure about Vienna.
I am sure, though, that Flawed’s attempt to use that to strike at the budget is, well, flawed.
The public has been shut out for the most part. Therefore, I probably will be one of the few, but I’m still voting no because there’s so little honesty presented. Did you see the shameful way they presented their mailing? A great big joke.
No Ms. Porter, you are wrong.
The school board budget committee had multiple meetings where they worked on the budget. All of those sessions were open to the public. The dates were posted well in advance of every meeting on the district website. The meetings were also filmed and are still on the district website for anyone that would like to watch them.
The budget committee then had a night in which there was a full budget presentation to the School Board. School Board meetings are open to the public. You could have come and watched that presentation first hand if you wanted.
After that meeting, the school board hosted a public forum on April 9th. If you wanted to provide feedback that would have been a good time to do it. The following full School Board meeting also had an opportunity for public comment before the board vote. That would have also been an opportunity to discuss any concerns you had with the board.
Or, you could have come to the Annual Meeting and let your concerns known. Though, it probably would be more appropriate to have done that much earlier in the process, if you were truly interested in working together for a positive result. You didn’t go to any of the meetings I mentioned above. That is on you, not the people that invested their time to do this work.
By the way, the District mailings were great and very informative! The district seems to be running very well under Ms. Meserve. They had a huge boon in enrollment. 120 new students in 2 years! While other districts are losing students and still having budget shortfalls, RSU 9 is only asking for an increase locally of 0.27%. That isn’t that much for so many new students. And, the additional enrollment means that young families are coming in to this district. This will in time stimulate our local economy.
Stop being so negative. Brush that chip off your shoulder.
I just wanted to thank all of the school board members for the hours of hard work they put in. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the proposed budget, the people representing our communities deserve the respect and gratitude of the taxpayers. I found the budget presentation to be very clear and very informative. The public had many opportunities to be involved in the process. There are some people you will never please, but luckily they seem to be a small minority.