If you’ve lived beyond 40 years, you’ll remember schools being quite a lot different
than they are today. From the way students and teachers dress to the way education
was presented, schools 40 years ago were a lot different. Funding for those schools
was also different. Towns paid for most of the costs of running a school. There would
some financial assistance from the State, but if a new school was built, the towns footed the bulk of the cost.
Fast forward to 2000. Most everything is different, particularly when it comes to education.
Between the mid-1960’s and early 1970’s, the towns were expected to consolidate because a larger school meant a better education. Some of us would argue that. It certainly is a different education. With that enlargement came less control by each town. Towns were sent a bill for education at the first of each year, and each town had to figure out how it was going to pay that bill.
In the beginning, the costs rose, but not to a point of choking the taxpayers. But as each year passed, the cost became greater and greater. The relationship between the schools, the schools’ administrators, the towns, and the taxpayers grew apart, until no one knew anyone anymore. That made it very easy for the administration to pass on larger and larger costs to the taxpayers simply because they didn’t know them, and frankly didn’t care. It’s easy to tax someone you don’t know. The taxpayers became nothing but a revenue source.
Years ago, when budget meetings were held, every employee of the school was expected to attend, as they do now. Few, if any taxpayers came. There was no point. Thirty taxpayers couldn’t overturn anything because they were outnumbered. And the budgets went up and up. The schools/administrators knew had they the majority, so they could pass anything they wanted and they did.
Then a bill was passed in the Legislature to allow towns to VOTE on a school budget at the town level. If you were a taxpayer, you could vote for or against a school budget. Many towns just passed the budget – teachers came to vote just like they did at the budget meeting. And the budget passed. But that isn’t happening now. Towns, with less revenue coming in, and larger tax bills going out, have increased the tax bills and the “people” are starting to take notice. In towns all over the state of Maine, school budgets are being over-turned. That holds true in our own district.
But because the taxpayers are finally standing up and voting NO on a budget, the supporters are very upset. Why wouldn’t they be? They’ve steam-rolled over the taxpayers and the towns for years, and NOW they are being stopped. And the idea that they can’t get their own way, after years of being spoiled, makes them very unhappy.
After 40 years of being taxed and taxed some more, there are some people who have had the courage to speak up, stand up, and be counted. And maybe, just maybe the school will finally see that we’re sick of paying up when the teachers’ and administrators’ salaries are the only ones going up. This opposition will continue until there is more instead of less transparency in the budget.
Now that the budgets have exceeded the $30 million mark, that expense is killing the towns. The state is stepping in to help the taxpayers with increased Homestead Exemptions, some tax relief on income tax, and some increased reimbursements to the schools toward expenses. But what hasn’t happened, and is so frustrating to those of us who are paying more and more each year is that the schools themselves have not cut back on their spending, nor do they intend to do so. Last year when the schools received some extra funds from the state, it was to come to the towns for tax relief. I predicted, at that time, the school would continue to increase their budget, thinking the taxpayers would forget since they got some reduction in their taxes. Well, this taxpayer DID NOT forget. And better yet, there are others who didn’t forget either. And the budget was voted down on the first round. Now they’ve reduced the budget a measly $344,000, banking on help from the state again this year. And then the supporters scream that the State is supposed to fund at 55 percent. RSU9 has been funded closer to 57 percent. So why does THIS school system think they should get more? It’s not because they’re producing a higher percentage of brilliant students.
The budget WILL get all the support it needs for spending from the members of the School Board because there is only one “POOR” person on the board. The rest are retired professionals, or they are married to working professionals with incomes that far exceed the median incomes of most of the taxpayers. I just hope on the next referendum vote on Aug. 3, the people who are sick of being railroaded by the school will show up and make their voices heard at the polls by voting NO again. It’s time for the schools to become accountable.
Nancy Porter
Farmington
