HAMPDEN, Maine — Residents of Regional School Unit 22 member towns of Hampden, Winterport, Frankfort and Newburgh will be asked to approved a $30 million education spending plan during their respective budget validation referendums Tuesday.
The budget going before voters was approved during a four-hour district budget meeting Thursday night in the Hampden Academy gym. It reflects a roughly 2 percent increase over the current budget, according to an overview prepared by school administrators.
The meeting ran longer than usual because of the amount of discussion — some of it heated — that took place about some of the 20 warrant articles. Some votes by a show of hands also were too close to call and there were several requests for secret ballot votes.
Some of the issues that generated the most debate involved the levels of funding for regular instruction and system administration and how any unexpected state subsidy the district might receive should be used.
With regard to regular instruction, residents voted by secret ballot to add $126,236 to the $10,842,147 that school officials budgeted.
Before voting, residents requested that the additional funds were to be used to restore a full-time language arts position, a half-time fine arts position and a half-time world languages post at Hampden Academy. School officials made it clear, however, that they were not legally obligated to use the money for that purpose.
Voters similarly increased the budget line for regular instruction by $142,401 in 2013 in hopes of restoring teaching positions at Hampden Academy and the middle school foreign language program, but those funds were used for other purposes.
Residents also cut $41,533 from the $848,848 that school committee members proposed for system administration, which some saw as bloated
Hampden resident Allison Berube noted that while many teaching positions had been eliminated in the district, she was not aware of any that had been cut from the superintendent’s office.
“Just to make it clear, there are contracts [in place] but there have been teachers not renewed over the years. We have been cutting, cutting and cutting. So I say that we make a statement that, yes, it’s going to be hard. Someone’s job is going to be cut,” she said.
“I can’t even recall all the cuts I’ve seen, all the people that are no longer there. So, yes, maybe we’ll keep our assistant superintendent and our superintendent but we may not keep their assistants, which leads on to why do they need an assistant? Year after year, we were told to do more with less. This is the year that we tell the administration you have to do more with less. “
Also discussed at great length but not changed was a warrant article authorizing the school board to spend any unexpected state subsidy to either increase expenditures for school purposes or to reduce the burden on property taxpayers in the district’s four member towns: Hampden, Winterport, Frankfort and Newburgh.
At the request of the Hampden Town Council, Hampden Town Manager Angus Jennings attended a May 2 meeting of the school district’s finance and budget committees to ask members to amend their votes on a proposed annual district budget meeting article to require that excess funds be used to reduce the burden on district property tax payers.
After some discussion, however, the committees declined to do so, he said.
Meanwhile, Winterport Town Manager Phil Pitula, on behalf of his councilors, wrote a letter to Superintendent Rick Lyons and school board Chairwoman Karen Hawkes seeking the same thing.
“It is very disconcerting to us that the proposed budget did nothing to address the reduction in state aid and its effect on our local assessment share after assurances from the administration at two separate meetings that cuts in state funding would result in cuts to the budget,” Pitula wrote.
“Therefore, should the school board and administration decide not to follow through on this request, we plan on publicly opposing the budget through all available local media outlets,” he said in the letter.
During a meeting on the night before Thursday’s district budget meeting, the school board adopted a resolution in which members committed to doing both, if the budget were approved as proposed. They agreed to use the first $258,000 of any additional funds from the state to reduce the local share of costs for education or 50 percent of the total extra funds — whichever is greater.
A motion to use all of any extra state money to lower the local share of the school budget failed.
As it stands, unexpected state subsidy is not likely. Under Gov. Paul LePage’s budget proposal, the district stands to lose an estimated $115,000, Hawkes said.