VEAZIE, Maine — When there is a continuous drop in enrollment at Veazie Community School and a subsequent decrease in state education dollars, it’s not prudent planning to keep using the school’s undesignated fund balance to reduce local costs, Superintendent Richard Lyons said Wednesday.
“We are going to be in a deficit for next year. We are going to be significantly short,” Lyons told residents at a special school board meeting earlier this week. “We are using $310,000 [in undesignated funds] this year. We have dedicated $355,000 [in undesignated funds] to the budget for next year,” which leaves around $200,000 in the contingency account.
The auditor suggests keeping about $420,000 in the undesignated funds account for emergencies, Lyons said.
“It’s not a prudent fiscal state,” the superintendent said. “That is very poor planning. That is not a strategic plan.”
Veazie residents paid $2.71 million for education in fiscal year 2010-11, which increased to $2.9 million in 2011-12 and $2.99 million in 2012-13, before decreasing to $2.77 million for 2013-14 and again to $2.71 million for this year.
Lyons explained that since the school department split from RSU 26 in 2013, school and town leaders have grappled annually with how to keep costs low, while also maintaining a well balanced school system.
“Budget deliberations can’t be year-to-year,” Lyons said. “They have to be strategic.The critical point is this: We need to bring the two governing entities together to develop a clear, well articulated strategic plan … for the next two to five years, with what our goal is and what our objective is to reach that goal.”
The school board and the Town Council have been at odds over the school budget for weeks.
Town councilors originally wanted to use $500,000 of the undesignated funds to offset the cost of education, but abandoned that idea last month when they, instead, directed school officials to flat fund the local share of the budget at $2,714,264.
After the school board voted to keep their original budget, which calls for $2,915,342 from residents, town leaders voted last week to again direct the school committee to make $201,000 in cuts. At their meeting earlier this week, the school board members again denied the town’s request.
“We have to have a common understanding and a common purpose,” the superintendent said Wednesday about the back and forth between the two town panels.
The fiscal woes are compounded by reduced state subsidies for education caused in part by decreasing student enrollments.
Veazie elementary-middle school has seen a steady decrease in enrollment for more than half a decade. There are 162 students enrolled this year compared to 173 for fiscal year 2013-14, 170 for 2012-13 and 183 for 2011-12.
“We’ve dropped 21 children in just a few years,” Lyons said.
The high point in student population was 2007 when 199 were enrolled in the school.
“We’re losing $213,000 [in state education funds] just because of enrollment,” Lyons said.
If school population numbers decrease again, the school will see even less money next year, the superintendent warned.
During Monday’s special school board meeting, some residents said the town is spending too much on education and they complained that Veazie’s per-pupil costs are thousands more than the state average.
Lyons said the per-pupil costs are higher because of the economy of scale. School board Chairman Gavin Batchelder said he agrees that costs are an issue that need to be addressed.
“My daughter is in a class with 11. It is a problem, but I don’t support combining fifth and sixth grades,” Batchelder said. “That will drive parents away. People are not going to come here, they are going to go to Hampden where there is a brand new school and great programs.”
Residents at the June 9 annual town meeting will vote on whether to support the school committee’s budget or the Town Council’s budget, and they also can increase or decrease the proposed school budget by 1.5 percent, the superintendent said.
If the town’s budget is approved, it’s expected the school will cut one classroom teacher, a half-time foreign language teacher, a part-time speech and language teacher, three sports clubs — possibly baseball, softball and cross country — the chess team, a part-time music teacher and a special education educational technician.
The school board already has cut a teaching position and two full-time education technicians, reduced the curriculum development budget, and dipped into the out-of-district placement contingency account to get to the budget they approved.
Once a school budget has been approved on June 9, a thumbs up or thumbs down school budget validation vote will be held June 16. If the validation vote fails, the budget process starts again, Lyons said.