Increased costs for special education, employee benefits and textbooks are among the main drivers behind a 2.14 percent proposed increase in Bangor Public Schools expenditures for the next school year.
Bangor Public Schools Superintendent Betsy Webb introduced a $45.2 million budget proposal to the school committee Wednesday night.
Her presentation was the first reading of the budget, which Webb said will likely change by the time it goes before voters in June due to uncertainties surrounding proposed education funding cuts in next year’s federal and state budgets.
“There are so many things still up in the air,” Webb said. “We’ll have to continue to monitor the state’s revenues, we will have to continue to monitor the other revenues, we’re continuing to look at tuition and then we also have to think about those federal revenues.”
Webb said, as it is, the proposed budget would add 30 cents to the town’s current property tax rate of $22.50 per $1,000 of taxable value. Webb told the school committee that if any extra funds are freed up after the budget is eventually set in stone, those monies will be dedicated toward tax relief.
The budget will go before the school committee for a second reading on April 5 and be taken up by the Bangor City Council later that month, Webb said. She said the city clerk hopes to hold the city-wide budget vote during the statewide referendum election on June 13.
The proposed budget would add three full-time positions, including a new social worker, a special education teacher and a grade five teacher, as well as a pair of part-time positions — an art teacher and a high school science teacher.
It also would delete three full-time positions — a hall monitor and two classroom teachers — and part-time positions for speech, occupational and physical therapists. Those cuts were based on student enrollment and needs, Webb said.
Spending for the fiscal year that starts July 1 includes a 4 percent increase in special education and a 1.7 percent increase for regular instruction, which encompasses among other items salaries and benefits for staffers, books, supplies and transportation costs for K-12 education, English as a second language and high achieving classes.
Added regular instruction expenses, which total $20.1 million, include a 3.4 percent increase in benefits, as well as added costs associated with new technology, textbooks, supplies, dues and fees and transportation and field trips. The district budgeted $5,250 less on professional development and training.
Under the proposal, special education salaries would climb 5 percent while benefits for employees in the department would go up 2 percent. The proposed budget for the department as a whole totals $7.1 million.
System administrative costs, such as for the district’s superintendent and business offices, total $1.2 million, representing an increase of nearly 6 percent, due to increases in benefits and costs associated with technology and maintenance, according to Webb. Another $2.5 million was set aside for individual school administrative offices, representing a 2.7 percent increase.
The budget includes $545,000 for career and technical education, an increase of 7.5 percent, and $1.4 million for other instruction, which includes summer school, post-secondary enrollment and co- and extra-curricular programs, an increase of 3.2 percent.
The $4 million budgeted for student and staff support represents a less than one percent increase, and includes small decreases in salaries and benefits and larger increases in purchased services and technology.
The budget set aside $1.9 million for transportation costs, an increase of 1.4 percent, and $4.7 million for facilities maintenance, a .4 percent increase. Debt service also is upped nearly 4 percent to $1.6 million, including a 7 percent increase in principal debt and a 13 percent decrease in interest.