GLENBURN, Maine — A reduction in state subsidy and an increase in costs for educating the town’s high school students likely will result in the elimination of four staff positions at Glenburn School.
A preliminary draft of the proposed $8.3 million budget plan for 2016-17 indicates that the School Department will receive $98,916 less in state aid, according to a memo that Superintendent Doug Smith prepared for Town Manager Michael Crooker.
The School Department also projects a $252,912 increase in the cost of sending students in grades nine through 12 to their choice of area high schools, a $103,507 increase in special education costs, a $13,362 increase in the cost of sending high school students to the United Technologies Center in Bangor, as well as required contractual step increases and related benefit increases for staff.
Smith said Monday that the four full-time positions slated for elimination are a Spanish teacher, who is retiring, one elementary teacher, one middle school teacher and one education technician.
The elimination of the Spanish post essentially results in the elimination of the school’s foreign language program.
An earlier version of the budget called for the elimination of one more ed tech. That position, however, was restored during a brief budget meeting Monday, Smith said.
In other steps aimed at reducing the burden on local property taxpayers, the school board also is recommending that $242,400 that was set aside in a capital reserve building account be applied toward budgets for the next two fiscal years.
Of that total, $142,400 would be used this year and $100,000 would be spent in 2017-18. Smith said that money initially was intended to be used for an expansion that would have eliminated the need for portable classrooms.
The school budget will be presented to the Town Council during a joint meeting next month and is slated to go before voters at the annual town meeting in June, Smith said.