HAMPDEN, Maine — Voters from the Regional School Unit 22 member towns of Hampden, Newburgh, Winterport and Frankfort will consider a $29.5 million spending plan for local education during their annual district budget meeting Thursday in the Hampden Academy gym.
During the meeting, which begins at 7 p.m., voters will have an opportunity to debate and decide 19 warrant articles related to education operations in the coming fiscal year, which begins July 1.
The district meeting is the budget’s last stop before it moves on to the budget validation referendum on Tuesday, June 9.
The polls will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the following locations: Hampden Municipal Building, Newburgh Elementary School, Samuel L. Wagner Middle School in Winterport and Frankfort Elementary School.
The proposed $29,548,782 gross budget reflects a roughly $560,000, or 1.9 percent, increase from this year’s budget, Superintendent Rick Lyons said Friday.
“The good news for us is that [state revenue] increased by $408,000, so that helped significantly,” Lyons said.
“We’d like to think that the strength of the budget is tied to the board’s strategic plan,” Lyons said while providing an overview of the budget plan. “In other words, it has a purpose that aligns with our [educational] initiatives.
“A good example would be the reintroduction of middle school world languages,” he said. That program was eliminated two years ago to help offset a relatively large budget increase because of new debt service related to the new high school.
Another priority for the board was in the area of technology, Lyons said. To that end, the budget includes funds to replace iPads purchased three years ago with Chromebooks, he said.
The budget also includes money to develop a concept design plan for the McGraw-Weatherbee school complex that could improve traffic flow and possibly physically connect the two schools, which are about 300 feet apart, he said.
RSU 22 leaders also plan to invest in marketing and development.
“We’ve put some money in the budget to allow us to start distributing and disseminating information about our school district maybe in different ways,” Lyons said.
That likely will involve website improvements and the use of social media. Lyons said the district is looking to collaborate with marketing students from area universities.
To offset the increases, school officials came up with more than $317,000 in budget cuts, including adjustments related to retirements, the elimination of an interpreter and an elementary teacher, reductions to an English language teaching position and a high school foreign language position and a high school education tech post, the budget overview shows.
If the RSU 22 budget proposal is adopted as is, the local share for Hampden will be $6,113,135, up 1.62 percent from this year, according to a budget overview developed by school administrators.
Newburgh’s local assessment will be $1,013,420, an increase of 1.63 percent from this year, while Winterport’s portion will be $2,509,973, an increase of 0.24 percent. Frankfort’s $800,419 share will be 0.66 percent more than this year.