VEAZIE, Maine — A special edition town newsletter sent to residents contains school budget information that is not sitting well with school officials who have scheduled a special Wednesday night school board meeting at the Veazie Community School to discuss the matter.
“The figures in the articles are wrong,” Superintendent Rick Lyons said Saturday. “That is why we’re holding the special school committee meeting Wednesday.”
At issue is the direction given in the newsletter by town leaders to spend all of the school’s fund balance and somehow cut another half million, Lyons said.
“That’s 16 percent of the budget — that is not doable,” the superintendent said.
After hearing that there are possible problems with the school budget figures on Page 3 of the newsletter, town officials are planning to discuss the matter at their April 27 meeting, Chairwoman Tammy Perry said Sunday.
“I requested they [the school board] come to the next council meeting,” Perry said. “I believe budget issues need to be discussed in public.”
The town’s plan is to reduce what locals contribute to the $4.2 million school budget by dropping the local allocation from $2.7 million to $2.2 million, and offsetting the school’s revenue loss by using $500,000 from the $866,860 in “settlement” funds received this year from the separation from RSU 26.
“With this recommendation, the school retains $366,860 of the RSU settlement and the town captures $500,000,” the newsletter states.
“When Veazie came out of the RSU, they came out with $866,000 [in operating and carry forward costs]. It’s not a settlement,” the superintendent explained.
In separate referendums in November 2012, residents of Glenburn and Veazie — two of the three towns that make up RSU 26 — voted to pull out of the school district they formed less than three years before, leaving Orono as the only member. Lyons, who is also superintendent for RSU 22 in Hampden, was hired in mid-2013.
Veazie town officials state in the newsletter that “the school will not be required to decrease their overall budget and will be able to use their reserves to make up the difference,” which Lyons said is just not true without serious cuts at the school.
“They’re [town leaders] directing the drawdown and use of the entire fund balance,” the superintendent said.
The school has about $200,000 in the fund balance account, which is about half of what the auditor suggests. Typically auditors want 10 percent of a district’s operating costs in the bank for emergencies, which would be $420,000 for Veazie if the school’s fund balance was properly funded, Lyons said.
The town stands behind the figures presented in the newsletter, Perry said, adding that “These are our recommendations.”
She also said, “This budget isn’t done. This is the beginning.”
Lyons said this is far from the beginning since there is a May 11 deadline for the council to approve the school budget, which is why “Wednesday night’s meeting is very important.”
Since the 2015-16 budget process began a couple month ago, school leaders have already made deep cuts, Lyons said.
“We’ve already cut $170,000 from the first draft,” the superintendent said. “We cut a teaching position, two full-time education technicians, reduced the curriculum development [budget] and cut $40,000 from out-of-district placement [contingency account].”
The special Veazie school committee meeting is 7 p.m. Wednesday in the school’s library.