FORT KENT, Maine — Fort Kent Town Council on Tuesday approved a warrant for an upcoming MSAD 27 budget meeting, which will be the second one this year after voters rejected the school budget in June. Town officials also approved the purchase of a plow and wing for the public works department’s spare truck.
The school budget hearing will be held on July 23 at the Fort Kent Community High School gym. If voters in the district pass the budget during this meeting, it will once again go to referendum on Aug. 19 for final approval.
This is the first time in ten years that MSAD 27 voters rejected a school budget. School budgets in Madawaska, Caribou and Hodgdon — among other places in Maine — were also shot down this year.
The rejected MSAD 27 budget would have increased taxes by $429,404, or 6.4 percent. The new budget, which will be presented later this month, has cut $436,410 from the last one, resulting in a lower budget than last year.
In order to make the new budget, school officials cut six positions and made reductions to food service equipment and building supplies, and found new savings by sharing positions with neighboring schools. The school will also begin charging student athletes $25 per season to play, with a $50 cap for the year.
Town Council also approved a $4,000 purchase from the public works capital reserve fund for a new plow and wing set to replace an aging set that is currently mounted on the town’s spare truck.
Public Works Director Chad Pelletier said the crew brought in the old set, which was made in the 1960s, earlier this summer to scrape and paint, but discovered that it was rotted beyond repair.
Pelletier at first considered getting a new set for one of the fleet’s newer trucks and rotating that truck’s older set to the spare truck, but found that this would cost around $14,000. After looking around and working with Presque Isle Public Works, Pelletier found a more affordable used set from Allied Equipment.
“He wanted a little more than five, but I got him down to $4,000,” Pelletier said. “It just needs a little bit of paint. It’s structurally sound, and it’s going on a spare truck, so I think it’d be a good deal.”
