FORT KENT, Maine — The fate of a proposed $12.1 million SAD 27 budget remains up in the air after school board members failed Tuesday to set dates for a districtwide budget hearing and referendum.
Instead, even with the current fiscal year coming to a close at the end of the month, the board decided at a special morning meeting to defer setting those dates until members hear back from officials at the Maine Department of Education concerning final figures for closing the elementary school in St. Francis.
If there is no new budget in place, the school will operate on a month-to-month basis based on the proposed $12.8 million budget that voters approved at a public hearing earlier this month but defeated at referendum on June 9, according to Tim Doak, SAD 27 superintendent.
Last week, the SAD 27 board voted to cut another $700,000 from that initial budget to present to voters next. Under the new $12.1 million plan, students in grades three, four and five from Wallagrass and Eagle Lake would transfer from their schools to Fort Kent starting next year and St. Francis Elementary School would be closed completely. The pre-kindergarten and second-grade students in the Eagle Lake and Wallagrass elementary schools would remain there, for now.
St. Francis residents would have the option of keeping their school open, Doak said, but would be responsible for all costs associated with it.
According to Lucie Tabor, SAD 27 director of finances, based on the 2013-14 budget, St. Francis would have to come up with $308,000 in additional local funds to pay for the school to stay open for the next school year.
The state must verify that amount, Doak said. Once it does, he said, the option to keep the school will appear on the St. Francis ballot when the overall district budget goes to referendum.
The SAD 27 board and administration worked with St. Francis residents last year in an attempt to keep the school open by giving the building to the town and leasing space for pre-kindergarten through second grade classes.
Under emergency legislation signed into law last month, the town could have converted the unused portion of the building into a for-profit venture.
Now, because of the additional budget cuts that include moving all remaining students from St. Francis to Fort Kent, that deal is off the table, according to Doak.
Keith Jandreau, an SAD 27 board member representing St. Francis, said his town understands cuts must be made, but he questioned the rush to now close the elementary school there.
“All the people there wanted was a timeline for closing the school,” he said. “We did not give them one because we are always up against a knee jerk reaction.”
The vote defeating the budget has given the board few options, according to Barry Ouellette, board chairman.
“When 83 percent [of the voters] say cut the budget, you have to listen,” Ouellette said “You need to make the cuts with the least impact to taxes, kids and teachers, [and] you can’t drag your feet.”
Several parents attending Tuesday’s meeting and at least one board member agreed but questioned where those cuts are coming from.
“The public wants to see the cuts made elsewhere,” Colette Pelletier, board member representing St. John, said. “We did not look anywhere other than [cutting] teachers [because] you know that moving kids to another building is a way to cut teachers.”
Amy Ouellette, whose children attend Wallagrass Elementary School, suggested looking at cutting overtime pay to district employees, increasing efficiencies to save money in the district’s meals programs, and slashing the adult education budget instead of busing students into Fort Kent.
“As a district we need to start working together as a group,” Ouellette said. “We need to remember we are here for children’s education, [and] I understand money is part of this, but we have to be for the kids.”
Pitting program against program or community against community is the last thing anyone wants, Doak said.
“These cuts have been made across the board and granted, things are going fast,” he said. “But I’m not sure if in the future we will have an SAD 27 if we can’t get along.”
Doak said he and Tabor spent hours crafting the newly proposed budget knowing full well that it, too, could go down in defeat.
“There is no telling what the voters will do and why,” he said. “If this budget gets voted down, we will go back and make further cuts.”
If the new budget is defeated, according to Eagle Lake resident Dana Saucier, it has more to do with taxes than education.
“We know any cut is going to have an impact,” he said. “But people do not want double-digit tax increases, [and] the taxes are getting beyond what people can pay in these towns in these economic times.”
Doak said he is unsure when he will hear back from the state with the St. Francis school numbers, but he said when he does, budget meetings, hearings and the referendum dates will be announced.
And he had a warning for his board.
“If you think it will be over, you are wrong,” Doak said. “There is a group [of residents] who are very fired up, and if we come at them with even a slight increase next year, we are looking at the same situation again.”
