The district has proposed a budget of almost $22 million for 2003-04.
FARMINGTON – In just over two weeks, voters in the nine-town SAD 9 will take to the polls to approve, or reject, the district’s proposed $21,199,979 budget for 2003-04.
The warrants for the vote already have been printed, but that hasn’t deterred the self-proclaimed SAD 9 Budget Advisory Committee, headquartered out of New Vineyard, from embarking on an 11th-hour flier campaign encouraging voters to shut that budget down.
Hundreds of fliers, paid for by committee members and urging voters to reject the budget have been appearing at gas stations, restaurants and barbershops. “Please remember, this isn’t our budget until we the voters says it’s our budget,” the fliers read.
Already, nearly 1,000 fliers have been handed out.
“We are still hanging in there,” said David Hargreaves, who spearheaded the advisory committee and has helped produce and distribute the fliers. “Right now, it’s tough times, and that budget is too damned expensive. It shouldn’t cost that much for education. We are definitely going to keep pushing as hard as we can to tell people the facts about this budget.”
The budget is up 2.1 percent from last year’s $20,765,361 budget, but thanks to a slew of position cuts, the proposed budget is actually less than the total negotiated salary/benefits increases for district staff of $763,000.
It’s those benefit packages for employees that have taken the most heat from the advisory committee, which argues that teachers should have to pay more of their health care.
“I am sorry if we are picking on the teachers so much,” Hargreaves said. “But that’s the way it goes. Their salaries aren’t that bad, but their benefits are just way too much.”
Many members of the advisory committee want the budget flat-lined with last year’s amount, he wants it lower. Ideally, Hargreaves said the more than 2,700 students in SAD 9 could be educated for $10 or $11 million. “
Among other proposed places to cut the budget, Hargreaves recommends, is in the budgets for sports and foreign language. Currently, the district offers French, Spanish and German. “French and German really isn’t all that important around here,” Hargreaves said.
The fliers are just another way to get the message of the advisory committee out into the open, he says. A way they say is working.
“The budget won’t pass,” he said. “I know it won’t. The kids have got to have an education, and we are trying to make that happen for as reasonable a price as possible.”
Meanwhile, the district has responded to taxpayer pressure, like that coming from the advisory group. Already, the budget that will be voted on June 10 is down nearly half a percent from the amount originally proposed to the school board at the start of the budget process.
But with insurance, fuel and operation costs rising, some increases can’t be prevented. Another issue, the school board has cited over and over, is that state and federal mandates, like the “No Child Left Behind Act” are not being backed up by federal and state dollars.
Despite the controversy surrounding the proposed 2.1 percent increase in the SAD 9 budget, other budgets from around the county have seen larger increases. In Rangeley, the budget is up nearly 5 percent, and SAD 58’s budget is up 3.33 percent.
The proposed budget in Livermore/Livermore Falls is the only one in the county that represents a decrease. The proposed amount for the entire system, which educates around 1,100 students, is $7,876,898, down from last year’s approved amount of $7,949,669.
A public hearing about the proposed budget in SAD 9 will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 27, at the Mount Blue High School. It will be followed by a regularly scheduled board business meeting.
sdepoy@sunjournal.com
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