ROCKLAND, Maine — The Rockland-area school board is expected to vote Thursday evening on a revised budget package that would save local property owners $1 million from the previous proposal that failed at referendum.
The $1 million in savings is being achieved through a combination of spending cuts and additional nonproperty tax revenues, Regional School Unit 13 Business Manager Peter Orne said Tuesday.
The changes are being made without laying off any staff, Orne said. There are several positions not being filled that will become vacant through retirements and other positions being filled with less experienced people who will be paid less, he said.
The school board met Monday evening to hear what the administration had come up with to develop a 2015-2016 budget that could gain voter approval. The administration presented the board with a package that contained $850,000 in savings and added revenues and said it would come back Thursday with an additional $150,000 to round off the total savings to $1 million.
Residents in the five communities of RSU 13 rejected the previously proposed $25.9 million budget by a vote of 793 to 524 at the first referendum on June 9. The revised budget is at about $25 million.
With the changes, the amount of additional property taxes needed from the largest RSU 13 community of Rockland would be limited to $700,000. This is about half of what originally had been proposed. This means a person owning a Rockland home assessed at $150,000 would pay about $135 more in annual taxes.
One of the largest reductions in spending would be $300,000 that has been set aside for a contingency fund for facility maintenance. The business manager said that with the previous budget year completed, the district knows what was spent and can operate without the contingency money.
The district also is expected to receive an additional $272,000 in state education aid now that the state budget has been adopted.
The district will reconfigure its custodial staff so there will be 2.5 fewer positions than had been included in the original budget. There will be no layoffs, however, because of retirements.
The administration also has proposed having South School Principal Lynsey Ward serve as principal of both the elementary school and Rockland District Middle School. The two schools are attached. Orne said the budget includes the creation of an assistant principal position for the South School and appointing a teacher as head teacher for the middle school.
That realignment is possible with the departure of RDMS Principal Kathy Hollicker, who is taking a job with the state education department.
In the previous attempt to get a budget passed, both the Rockland City Council and Thomaston Board of Selectmen opposed the package, saying the property tax impact was too significant. The Rockland councilors approved a resolve on May 11 to call for “appropriate meaningful” cuts. Thomaston selectmen took out advertisements and sent out a newsletter to residents urging rejection of the budget.
The board will vote on the proposed budget at a meeting set for 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the McLain School. The districtwide budget meeting, at which residents will set the final figures, is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday, July 23.
The referendum to validate or reject the amount adopted on July 23 will be held at the polls in each community at Tuesday, Aug. 18.