BREWER, Maine — A budget battle is brewing between the school department and city leaders.
School officials are demanding $1 million more for the fiscal year 2017-18 budget, and implying that several sports programs could see cuts if they don’t get it.
This is the first year in nearly two decades where school leaders have appeared unwilling to change their numbers since they were first presented in January, according to City Finance Director Karen Fussell.
“It’s very discouraging,” she said. “For reasons unknown, this year the city’s interests and objectives have been side railed by school officials.”
City Council members have told school leaders that they are willing to help out with the recent influx of 130 new students by increasing the local share of the budget by $500,000, City Manager Steve Bost said when the school and city budgets were presented to the City Council on Wednesday.
“This was quickly rejected,” Bost told councilors.
City officials said they informed school leaders that were unwilling to increase the amount taxpayers pay by $1 million because it would cause the the tax rate to rise by about $1.50 per $1,000 of valuation.
School leaders responded by creating a list of cuts to football, hockey, fall cheerleading, field hockey and swimming and distributing it to parents, and issuing a vague threat.
“Should the $1,000,000 in funding fall through from the city or should our budget not pass at the referendum on June 13, these cuts could potentially become more of a reality,” said Gretchen Gardner, school department business manager.
The school board actually added two sports — boys lacrosse and girls volleyball — in its unanimously endorsed preliminary budget of $21.98 million on May 15. The draft budget is a 4.5 percent overall increase over this year and asks taxpayers for nearly $8.17 million, a 14 percent increase.
In addition to the two new sports, the school board also added a new Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, or STEM, program, at a cost of $113,296, and a new American Sign Language class for $88,461.
The school board did make cuts by eliminating a school resource officer for a savings of $47,000; high school “first team” sports, a $7,439 reduction; $3,000 for cheer choreography; and $2,500 for marketing to eighth grade “school choice” students.
Superintendent Cheri Towle said an influx of 130 new students, 74 of which with special education needs, is the reason behind the larger budget request. She told councilors that the $500,000 offered by the city is not enough to cover the costs.
Bost presented two combined school and city budgets, one that includes the $1 million dollar increase for the school department that would result in an overall tax increase of $1.77 per $1,000 of assessed value and a second that would hold the school increase to $500,000 and would result in an overall tax increase of $.98 per $1,000 in assessed value.
The combined budgets include a proposed fiscal year 2017-18 municipal budget of $13.2 million, an increase of 2 percent increase over this year.
Several people spoke during the public comment session in support of the school’s budget, saying having extra-curricular sports programs are important to a well-rounded student, and that adding the STEM program will only attract students.
The city council is scheduled to make its final decision about whether to approve, reduce or increase the budgets, on June 6. The thumbs up or thumbs down school budget validation vote is June 13.