Two weeks after voters resoundingly rejected its 2025-26 budget, the Caribou-based RSU 39 School Board went back to the drawing board Monday, recommending a budget that reduces impact on taxpayers by roughly $60,000.
That budget will now go to a budget meeting for a public vote on July 1, followed by a second referendum on July 8.
The district created the reduction in its budget request by cutting just over $35,000 in system administration costs and finding $25,000 in additional revenue, both associated with its new full-time curriculum coordinator position.
The school board found that a portion of the salary for that role — which is currently unfilled — could be covered by federal grants, reducing system administration costs to $898,664 instead of the $937,808 proposed in the initial budget. The additional revenue is projected to come from loaning out the curriculum coordinator to another school district on a contract basis for one day a week.
“We recognize that budget decisions weigh heavily on our entire community, our taxpayers, our families, staff, but most importantly our students,” school board chairperson Lindsey Theriault said during the meeting. “In response, the RSU 39 School Board closely reexamined the numbers.”
The new budget projects a 0.43 mill increase, Theriault said, down from 0.54 in the original budget.
Because the city of Caribou operates on a fiscal calendar year, from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, and RSU 39 works on a fiscal year from July 1 to June 30, tax increases levied by this proposed rise would be split between property tax bills in 2025 and 2026.
After the first proposed budget was voted down on June 10, the school board initially considered reductions that would have slashed its budget ask from $287,000 to just $45,000, “ essentially a flat budget compared to the previous year,” Theriault said.
But that would have meant staffing cuts, including reducing the district’s nurses’ office from three nurses to two, a notion that received pushback.
“How can two nurses support nearly 30,000 face-to-face visits per school year?” RSU 39 nurse Stephanie Raymond said during the public comment portion of the meeting. “How will they have the time to give students the proper attention they need, let alone record data, document all of the findings, interventions and have meaningful conversations with families?”
So the school board once again reconsidered the budget.
“This was a sincere effort to respond to the concerns voiced by voters by voting down the referendum,” Theriault said. “However, after a thorough analysis and discussion, it became clear that such a significant reduction would result in staffing cuts and have a dramatic negative impact on the quality of education and services we are able to provide.”
The district’s new budget request, recommended by the school board at Monday’s meeting, is $227,143.
Two Caribou residents spoke against the budget increases during the meeting, including Steve Stubbs, who received a rousing applause from attendees after he said he would be willing to volunteer as a substitute teacher one day a week for the entire school year at a savings of roughly $3,800.
“If we got 26 people to do that, that’s $100,000 we would be saving,” Stubbs said.
