FARMINGTON — Voters from 10 towns in Regional School Unit 9 will be asked June 1 to consider a proposed $32.25 million school budget for 2015-16. It represents a 3.9 percent, or $1.2 million increase from this fiscal year.
About half of the increase is attributed to the special education program, Superintendent Tom Ward said Monday.
The proposed adult education budget is $385,490, a $13,379 increase from this year.
The districtwide budget vote will be held at 7 p.m. in Bjorn Auditorium at Mt. Blue Campus. The budget that voters set that night will go to a validation vote June 9 at polling stations in each town.
The proposed spending plan covers moving the Central Office and staff to the Mt. Blue Campus. The board will continue to look at options for a permanent home for the office, including a building constructed on the campus by students in the building trades program at Foster Career and Technical Education Center, Ward said.
The district will renovate the Central Office on the ground level of Mt. Blue Middle School into four, large classrooms for students who receive special education services, Ward said.
The school board axed the option of leasing a quadruple portable unit to put outside the cafeteria at the middle school for the special education program.
The plan also reduces the number of day-treatment centers in district schools from four to three. Students served in the program who attend Cape Cod Hill School in New Sharon will attend a program at a Farmington school.
Students in kindergarten through second grade will go to Mallett School, students in grades three through six will attend Cascade Brook School and those in grades seven through 12 will attend Mt. Blue Campus.
About $600,000 of the $1.2 million proposed budget increase is for special education, Ward said.
“We have a growing population and we haven’t been in compliance,” he said. “This will be reimbursed in two years’ time. We should be able to bill $220,000 of it to MaineCare. We knew coming into this budget that special education was going to be a priority.”
By holding in-district day-treatment centers, RSU 9 saves $529,000 a year compared to sending students to programs outside of the district, he said. The centers serve students who have mental health issues that interfere with learning.
The proposed budget also contains funds to insure student laptops so students in grades seven through 12 can take them home to do school work. The cost is estimated at $72,504 and will be offset with about $36,000 in E-Rate funding, Ward said.
E-Rate is a commonly used name for the Schools and Libraries Program of the Universal Service Fund. The program is administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company under the direction of the Federal Communications Commission.
The spending package also includes two teaching positions at Cascade Brook School for the third and fourth grades to keep class sizes down, Ward said.
A half-time science teaching position was also added to the high school so students can take anatomy and physiology, and engineering and design.
Two new special education teaching positions are also included in the budget for the middle school.
dperry@sunmediagroup.net
Send questions/comments to the editors.
