FORT KENT, Maine — Students in grades three, four and five from Wallagrass and Eagle Lake will transfer from their schools to Fort Kent starting next year as part of a plan to cut more than $700,000 from the SAD 27 budget.
For now, the pre kindergarten and second grade students in the Eagle Lake and Wallagrass Elementary Schools will remain there.
The plan, approved Monday by the SAD 27 board of directors also closes the St. Francis Elementary School completely.
Under the plan, SAD 27 will cut 12 teaching and staff positions districtwide, reduce some positions to part time and leave some open positions vacant.
The cuts come a week after SAD 27 voters overwhelmingly rejected the board’s proposed $12.8 million fiscal year 2015-2016 budget and the associated local tax increases of up to 20 percent.
“We heard from the public with that vote,” board member Gary Sibley said. “We know what they want [and] I don’t see any of these cuts that are unreasonable and we need to act on them.”
District officials warned these are not the last of the budget cuts SAD 27 will need to make and completely closing some school buildings could be part of future reductions.
“This is just the first wave of cuts we are going to have to make year after year,” Barry Ouellette, SAD 27 board chairman, said. “The cuts have to come from somewhere [and] in this plan there is something for everyone not to like.”
Earlier this year, following successful legislative action in Augusta, residents of St. Francis voted to accept ownership of their town’s elementary school and lease several rooms back to the district for the prekindergarten through second-grade classes.
At the same time, they have been looking for a paying tenant for the rest of the building.
On Monday, the SAD 27 board members voted to pay the town of St. Francis the $45,000 one-year lease payment approved earlier this year, but to transfer all remaining prekindergarten through grade two students to Fort Kent starting this fall, effectively closing the school.
“I am very disappointed,” Cindy Jandreau, St. Francis resident who had worked on the plan to keep the school open. “I understand but I wish they would have given us a year to prepare.”
Board member Keith Jandreau who represents St. Francis was also disappointed by the move.
“It was inevitable,” he said, pointing out falling enrollment around the district. “I think you are going to see more SAD 27 towns withdraw from the district over the next 10 years.”
This past year the community of Winterville formally pulled out of SAD 27, taking $200,000 in revenue with them.
Last week’s defeated budget represented an overall 3 percent increase over spending from last year, but it included a 14 percent increase to the local share because of $321,000 of losses in revenue.
The new proposal includes a 1.6 percent increase to the local share, according to SAD 27 Superintendent Tim Doak.
“Since the ‘no’ vote, we have been working day and night to figure out a budget that would [least] impact the taxpayers, students and classrooms,” he said. “That vote was a clear message [that] people can’t take double digit tax increases.”
The $700,000 in new cuts come on top of $800,000 in cuts the board had made from the previous year to get to the defeated $12.8 million proposal.
“I think the board is moving in the right direction,” said Lorie Voisine, SAD 27 Teachers’ Association president. “This is the beginning of making the cuts that close buildings, but keep good teachers and maintain a decent education system.”
SAD 27 will hold a public hearing on the new proposed $12.1 million budget July 7 at Fort Kent Community High School.
It will then go to the voters on July 14.
“In the future SAD 27 has to be smaller, leaner and smarter if we are going to have an SAD 27,” Doak said. “The ultimate thing is the taxes and getting them down and we understand that.”
