POLAND — The Regional School Unit 16 committee Monday approved a $20.7 million budget for the 2015-16 fiscal year.
The budget is about $750,000 more than this year’s and $50,000 more than it was before Monday’s meeting after the committee approved member Ed Rabasco’s move to add a foreign language to the Whittier Middle School curriculum. Rabasco’s amendment came in response to appeals by voters at meetings in Mechanic Falls, Minot and Poland in April to add a Spanish language program at the middle school in Poland.
The additional $50,000 will not affect earlier estimates of the budget’s overall impact on local property tax rates.
Superintendent Tina Meserve earlier told the board that it appears the district will finish the school year with a surplus of about $600,000.
That led her to conclude that the district could increase the amount it was going to use to lower local assessments from $325,000 to $375,000.
The School Committee turned down moves to add one teacher each at the elementary schools in the three towns for $150,000, and an additional teacher at Elm Street School in Mechanic Falls and Minot Consolidated School, and a couple of educational technicians at Poland Community School for $100,000.
Erica Douglas, president of Minot’s Community Club, argued Monday night that additions would lower teacher-student ratios.
Meserve said Minot Consolidated School has a student to teacher ratio of 1 to 16; Elms Street School, 1 to 18; and Poland Community School, 1 to 18.8.
The budget is projected to increase property taxes in all three towns. In Mechanic Falls, the projected increase on a house valued at $100,000 would be $39.42; in Minot, $46.56; and in Poland, $44.33.
Meserve said that if the School Committee approved hiring additional teachers in the elementary schools, the increases in property taxes in the three towns on a $100,000 property would have been about $56 in Mechanic Falls, $62 in Minot and $56 in Poland.
The districtwide budget hearing and vote will be Thursday, May 21, at the Poland Regional High School. The budget validation referendum is June 9 at polling stations in the three towns.
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