BREWER, Maine — With a known $236,464 drop in state education funding — and more possibly on the way — school leaders already are talking possible cuts for next year and basically everything is on the table, Superintendent Daniel Lee said Friday.
“We’re looking at every single program and doing our best to assemble a budget that will balance, but at the same time won’t eviscerate the entire school department,” he said.
The Brewer School Committee heard about the coming budget cuts during Monday’s board meeting.
The projected drop in state Essential Programs and Services funding for Brewer for fiscal year 2010-2011 has increased over the last four months, with a $163,000 cut originally projected in August. And the figure is not finished yet, Lee said.
“The governor is going to make another cut in January,” he said, adding the economic news is not unexpected. “They don’t have money in the state coffers.”
Add these cuts to the $33,000 decrease already in the fiscal year 2010-2011 budget, which is the first installment to repay the state for $101,168 in out-of-district special education funds issued to the district that went unused.
“That’s a three-year payment,” Lee said.
The coming year also is the first year the school department must make its first debt service payment of $216,000 for the local portion of the new school.
Discussions about next year’s budget, which typically begin in December or January, began this year in September, which is when school leaders froze all nonessential spending.
Lee and his school principals have been talking for months, trying to come up with ways to make cuts.
With 80 percent of the school department’s costs in personnel, avoiding teacher or staff cuts may be unavoidable, he said.
“We’re looking at everything from co-curricular to extra-curricular to instructional support, to facility maintenance, to food service,” Lee said. “All these things are on the table. There are no sacred cows.”
During Monday’s meeting, the board also:
ä Held the first reading of a new policy to add two student representatives, a junior and a senior, to the school board. “What the board is interested in is hearing from students,” Lee said. The second reading, and vote on whether to endorse the policy, will be held at the Jan. 4 school board meeting.
ä Held Superintendent Daniel Lee’s annual evaluation, and afterward extended his contract by a year, to 2015, and gave him a 1 percent raise.