RUMFORD — The $33.3 million budget proposed for Regional School Unit 10 would increase assessments an average of less than a 5% in five of the seven towns, Superintendent Deb Alden and Business Manager Leah Kaulback told directors Monday night.
Meeting at Mountain Valley High School, Kaulback said Buckfield would see a 6.45% increase in its assessments and Rumford’s increase would be 5.46%.
Assessments for Hanover, Hartford, Mexico, Roxbury and Sumner would be less than a 5% increase for 2023-24.
For all assessments to be below a 5% increase, the district would need to cut an additional $195,000 from the budget, Kaulback said.
“I’d like to see every town be under 5%, personally, that’s just me,” Chairman Greg Buccina of Rumford said.
Director Jerry Wiley of Buckfield agreed, saying his town is “getting burnt bad,” in tax increases.
Alden repeated information she shared at the Feb. 27 board meeting, saying that although the towns will have to raise $600,000 more than last year for education, the state is giving the district $1.7 million more than this fiscal year, which ends June 30.
“So that’s a net gain of $1.1 million, and for a lot of the districts their net is a loss.
“I only tell you that because as much as this (budget) looks like ‘ugh,’ we’re lucky. I just want to be transparent, that it may not look very appetizing but it’s worse in other (districts),” she said.
In another matter, Alden said she recently spoke to a representative at Oxford County Emergency Management Agency in Paris regarding designating the district’s new prekindergarten through eighth grade school as an emergency shelter for the Rumford and Mexico area.
The $92 million school is planned for the site of Mountain Valley Middle School at 58 Highland Terrace and Meroby Elementary School at 21 Cross St., both in Mexico. It would replace those schools and Rumford Elementary School and serve students in prekindergarten through eighth grade. It’s expected to open in August 2025.
The emergency management representative agreed the new school should be designated as an emergency shelter and it needs a generator, Alden said. She will seek grants to pay for a generator and an emergency notification system, she said.
The high school is an emergency shelter, but it does not have a generator, Alden said.
Buckfield Junior-Senior High School is also an emergency shelter and has a generator, she said.
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