NEWPORT, Maine — Cuts totalling about $750,000 are in store for Regional School Unit 19 if voters in the district don’t approve a $3.6 million loan on Nov. 6.
Those cuts alone won’t be enough to get RSU 19 out of trouble, said new Superintendent Greg Potter on Wednesday.
Due to serious errors in previous budgets — including the fact that member towns were not billed for their obligations to the school district, RSU 19 has a $3.6 million shortfall this year.
The school board approved a list of cuts to be made if voters in Corinna, Dixmont, Etna, Hartland, Newport, Palmyra, Plymouth and St. Albans don’t pass the loan on next week’s ballot.
“I will implement those cuts the very next day,” said Potter. “We’ll get the staff letters out and folks will be laid off.”
Potter, who became superintendent in July, said 83 percent of RSU 19’s budget is made up of salaries, benefits and mandatory costs that must be paid. Only 17 percent of the budget is capable of being cut.
The district has already cut $830,000 from the budget.
In case the loan isn’t passed, Potter said, the following programs will be cut for this school year: elements of the music program, junior varsity and freshman baseball, JV cheering, all middle school “B” spring sports, all field trips, all after-school activities at Nokomis Regional High School in Newport, boys and girls JV and freshman basketball, JV softball, all boys and girls “B” basketball, transportation to sports, music, and other events, and tens of thousands of dollars in supplies and equipment.
Five and a half full-time equivalent support staff positions also will be cut, along with coaching positions of sports teams that will be cut.
“[These] additional cuts would also drop minimum local amounts to a level below what the state requires towns to raise for state subsidy qualifications,” Potter said.
Potter said cutting $3.6 million in one budget cycle would be devastating to the district. The loan would help RSU 19 stay competitive, he said.
“The district needs a loan. I’m choosing stability instead of decline,” said Potter. “Right now, our immediate need is getting through this year.”
He said the district would likely survive without a loan this year, but not without serious damage to its credit rating, which would affect future loans.
The district took out a $1.5 million Revenue Anticipation Note in July to pay previous bills. That loan must be paid back by the end of the school year. Right now, the district isn’t paying on that loan.
“What do you do in terms of your ability to pay other existing obligations on time? Pay the loan on time to the bank? We won’t have the funds available to pay teacher payroll for July and August if the district can’t get a Revenue Anticipation Note [because of poor credit],” said Potter. “We’ll continue this mess for much, much longer and we’ll continue to deplete programming and services for the kids.”
The district has 2,279 students this school year, which is down 10 from the previous year. Three of those students transferred to charter schools in Cornville and the Maine Academy for Natural Sciences at Good Will-Hinckley, Potter said.
“If the practice of school choice continues, are people going to go here [if the district has to cut programs]? Not likely,” said Potter. “We want a high level of involvement of kids in our schools, programs, extracurricular activities, athletic programs, all of those things we offer.”
The $3.6 million loan RSU 19 is asking for would be repaid over a 10-year term.
Selectmen and town managers from seven of the eight towns in the district met on Oct. 18 to discuss the loan. Six of the eight towns placed a joint ad in the Rolling Thunder regional weekly newspaper to warn taxpayers that the $3.6 million loan would have a significant impact on the tax rates of the towns.
Potter said adjustments to future budgets can be made so the impact is not so severe to taxpayers.
“The problem with [the six-town ad’s] approach is that the 2013-14 budget hasn’t been drafted yet,” said Potter. “If overall budget spending can be reduced in the district, the impact to the mill rates would be considerably less than the estimates shown.”
Isn’t it interesting how whenever they have to make tough cuts they always go for the sports programs first. They know these are hot button items that will cause immediate rage with the parents of the kids who are actually lucky enough to play sports. These parents, who area actually the minority will casue the buggest stir and the school board will feel complelled to restore the cuts.
“Due to serious errors in previous budgets — including the fact that member towns were not billed for their obligations to the school district, RSU 19 has a $3.6 million shortfall this year.” So bill them now. The obligation hasn’t gone changed. I’m sure it wouldn’t be the first time some of these towns were late paying a bill.
They used the same shenanigans to start a football team at Nokomis. No question. These guys should be left to stew in their own mess. No way should they be borrowing money to make a bad situation worse. It’s just another way of saying “tax increase.”
Sounds like they already borrowed assuming we would pay. Bad assumptions and someone should go to jail for that alone.
I believe the district doesn’t pay for football. It is booster funded. I could be wrong about all the equipment, though.
and isn’t it sad that high school sports are the “hot button items” as opposed to teachers, programs, etc. What a sad commentary on our society. I work in a school, and it always scares me when a parent calls, all concerned that little Bobby might not be able to play football/basketball, etc due to grades. They don’t care that their son or daughter isn’t doing a thing, academically, but “isn’t there something we can do so they can play sports.” Yep, nice role modeling there.
Which is why they do it, same goes to the feds as well, have to make cuts, so lets start with the Seniors, Veterans, Disabled, ect… if they started with their own pay, no one would disagree. So there for it is not a story.
Time and time again, I have tried to reach the brain of a politician, we need a better way to finance schools,than property tax, we need some kind of one-percent sales tax to support our schools. The real estate tax payers are about taxed to the point where most cannot pay their taxes.
You mean like when the lottery revenue was supposed to finance education?
THIS particular situation seems to have nothing to do with how to finance schools, however. THIS situation seems to be directly related to incompetent leadership in a school district. I would like to see the former superintendent brought up on charges. Somebody should have to pay for this gross fiscal mismanagement. It does appear Mr. Potter is doing a great job so far of trying to sort everything out. He inherited quite a mess.
Absolutely agree. The kids of this district will be the ones that suffer the most of this whole mess, no matter the outcome.
I don’t really see how cutting sports programs and a few half-time positions is going to make up the difference here. It seems to me that a lot more teaching positions will have to go as well. What’s interesting and sad (for multiple reasons) is that the super didn’t really even go there because he knows the general public couldn’t care less about educational programming, but mention cutting sports, OH MY GOD!
Agreed. Sports and other extra curricular activities are the things kids remember from their times in school. If such programs are cut, there will be complaints of nothing to do for the kids and the community/town officials will be blamed.
Make the cuts. Start with the Unions, then cut the State out of the picture, and turn yourself into a charter school. If Newport takes the loan they will go under. Most people in Newport are good, but the young people do not work, so when all the working people retire , and the old folks die there will be nothing but bums left. It is happening in lots of older northern small towns in Maine.
The only way to stop it is to cut the cancer out, stop giving people money, end welfare, and then people will work, or move to a warmer climate. Vote Republican!!
Everybody chant;
WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN
WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN
WHAT ABOUT THE TEACH…..umm CHILDREN
Your chant is what the Unions use to get everything they want. We can teach the children without 750,000.00
Learn how to balance your budget. If my budget was always over and I wrote bad checks I would be in court.
not a balance budget issue. The issue is they thought that money would carry over, it did not. It was not they they over spend their money per say, they just thought they counted on money that they though would be there but wasn’t. I am sure if they had proper accounting this would not have been an issue. They did not.
The problem is how a Govt budget works!
Example: I have a $15,000 dollar budget per quarter, I spent wisely I only spend $10,000, in the budget meeting you show you have $5,000 left, and the people in charge throw a fit, holly crap, now what are we gonna do with that extra 5k, we have to spend it, so we can request more for the next quarter, and so on and so on and so on ect… now 16 trillion in debt, and that is how every level of a Govt budget works PERIOD.
Didn’t we all go through this not too many years ago. First of all, I want to say i’m not blaming Mr. Potter. He inherited this problem and found a short fall. The thing with me is how do you miss 3.6 million. That doesn’t constitute the term “OOPS”. There is something fishy about this one. I think an investigation should be done before any money is asked for.
As for cutting sports and after school activities, cut them. Kids are at school to learn not play sports and such. If the need is there to play then get together after school and get a friendly game going in a field somewhere. It’s not up to the taxpayers to provide babysitting services to the kids.
The good people of these towns are struggling as it is now. Times are tough for all of us. But don’t ask us for more money if we just don’t have it to give. 3.6 million? Think someone has full pockets. Investigate first please.
They did, or for my understanding they know what the issue was. They thought money carried over from year to year in some type of program. It did not, they included that money in the budgets and spend accordingly. They found out when Mr. Potter came on that, that money didn’t carry forward. It was an accounting issue.
You mean I’m now paying for j.v AND freshman baseball,j.v. AND freshman basketball, j.v. softball,j.v. cheering????? You have to be kidding? We all want as much as possible for the kids,but these programs are not a necessity,like food,clothing,shelter. Everyone is going to have to sacrifice some.I for one can not afford MORE property TAX! If this whole problem was actually caused by not billing the towns,when are they going to be billed?? The debt doesn’t just go away because you “forgot” to bill the Towns. Something sounds pretty strange here.
Loss of 10 students to charter schools, out of 2279 students.. Wow that will throw a budget off. How are they going to cope. How that got thrown into the story can only be political. Blame John Baldacci for school money saving consolidations which cost more.. funny how that works. Turn it into a private school and rid yourselves of the expense of the teachers unions
You mean, pay private school tuition for all those that can’t afford it?
“I will implement those cuts the very next day,” said Potter. “We’ll get the staff letters out and folks will be laid off.”
You better cut your position first Potter. No one in this area gave you permission to get a loan in anticipation of anything the voters might do.
That all being said close the wholse schools system and send everyone home. We can then choose where to send our kids and get exactly what we want not this sort of mismanagement.
How can we choose where to send out kids if there are no schools in the six towns? What if the parents work and can’t cart their kids to Bangor to school?
There other towns than Bangor near all 6 of those towns. But what about this option. Charter school doing the same thing for less money? The buildings are there and we own them. The teachers will still be there and they will be looking for work. We choose which ones to hire back so we can seperate some of the bad apples from good. We start from scratch without all of the jacked up obligations that make up some 85% of what this guy says can’t be cut.
I have news for you. The promises that were made in the past can and will be cut one way or the other because we can no longer afford to pay for the sweetheart deals that were negotiated by Dems with the Unions they were in bed with.
One way or the other this ends but it can end nicer in some ways than in others.
…..ivk
So you keep throwing loans at them to reward their mismanagement? When is too much debt too much for you? How much should my property taxes go up before you stop throwing my money around?
like send your kids to Bangor? Force other people to pay for your kids and towns education?
When you get around to actually reading you will see that I have expressed other options here. You do not just have to keep throwing more and more of our money at their poor management.
Selectman & Town mangers.
Ask Greg if he has activly looked into how some “staff” does their purchasing? I can tell you that many of your Janitorial and food products for the lunch programs are done through relationships of many years, and directors in charge of these programs havent been buying from the best priced companies. little “kickbacks” have been going to the wrong people for some time. and not looked at for the best interest of the RSU.
Wait a minute.
You mean to tell me the school district budget crew made a
THREE point SIX MILLION DOLLAR error with billing??
Who was advising them ??
The Lincoln Town budget crew ??
One word for them : You’re fired.
I’ve learned that Nokomis isn’t a great high school–in fact I don’t like how the school tried to drop a teacher a few years ago when he supported traditional marriage during the election period (on their own personal time, not at the school) but another teacher supported gay marriage and didn’t get fired. I’ve also heard bad things about the social quality from a moral perspective. I will have to seriously consider if I truly want to support that school given its poor quality… Probably the reason some parents who can afford it are putting their kids in charter schools as indicated in the article.
I find it a little sad that the extra $20-80 per year it’s going to wind up costing people has soured so many to going after the loan. Particularly as – at least a portion of – the shortfall came from the area towns not being billed for services they agreed to pay for.
The district already spends (and therefore bills for) less money per student than almost any other district in the state. Most of the schools are already running with fewer teachers and more kids than they had 10 years ago. There’s not a lot of fat to be cut, and should the rsu dissolve it’s almost certain that taxes would have to go up considerably to cover the higher cost per student of any of the surrounding school systems.