By Joseph Cyr
Staff Writer
HOULTON — Voters gave overwhelming support May 21 to a $12.7 million spending plan for RSU 29, but not without considerable discussion on the warrant articles.
A group of about 60 residents from Houlton, Hammond, Littleton and Monticello attended the three-hour session at the Houlton High School auditorium. Instead of seeking cuts to the budget, several members of the public asked for the budget to be increased by $10,000 in the hopes that those funds would save the junior varsity baseball and softball programs.
As presented, the 2013-14 district budget of $12,669,258 is an increase of $170,014 (1.36 percent) over the previous year. The state is giving the district more funds than last year, but also seeks an increase in the required local amount to be raised from taxes in order to get those funds.
The state is giving the district $8,718,391 next year, which is an increase of $182,264. However, in order to get those funds the required local share, as mandated by the state, for RSU 29 will be $3,206,694. That amount is an increase of $256,810 over last year’s figure.
While the district made a diligent effort to keep spending down, the net result will likely be an increase in taxes for the member communities.
The required local amounts for each community, including costs for adult education, are: Hammond, $59,216 (an increase of $6,551); Houlton, $2,400,945 (an increase of $185,915); Littleton, $454,266 (an increase of $35,800); and Monticello, $360,266 (an increase of $28,543).
The district could have chosen to accept less than the required local amount under a provision offered by the state, but that plan is only being offered for one more year, according to finance committee chairman Fred Grant.
By accepting less than 100 percent of the state funds, the required local share would have also gone down. However, if the district was to accept less money from the state this year, it would face a much larger spike next year, Grant said.
“Given the challenges we have seen in Augusta, we attempted to create financial stability over the next five to seven years in an environment of significant academic change and state funding shifts,” Grant said. “As we have seen over the past several years, state funding has been volatile. Augusta has not set the official EPS budget, so we don’t know what our final mandates are, but we have to move forward to get our budget approved.”
To create stability, the board made numerous cuts as more than $500,000 was cut from last year’s expenses to offset increase in health care premiums, negotiated salary increases and the need for new technology.
“We are hoping within the next five to seven years things will calm down and the economy will improve to carry us through this instability,” Grant said. “Our goal over the next three years is to get to a zero increase in the budget.”
Sue Tortello, a member of the Houlton Town Council, attempted to amend the district’s required local share through this rule, which would have reduced the required local share to $2,949,838 (the same amount as last year). Her effort failed overwhelmingly by a vote of one in favor and 54 opposed.
Like most school districts, the RSU 29 budget has risen steadily over the past eight years. As a comparison, in the 2005-06 fiscal year the total budget was $10,068,006. Only once during this time span did the budget decrease. In 2008-09, the district’s budget featured a decrease of about $3,000 over the previous year.
Most school districts also spend more than what the state says they should spend, which requires additional local funds must be raised in many communities to balance the budget. In RSU 29, however, no additional local dollars have been sought for the past four years as the district has taken money from its surplus account to cover those additional local costs.
This year, the district is taking $182,288 from its undesignated fund balance to cover the additional local costs needed to balance the budget. That figure is down dramatically from last year’s amount of $426,567.
Last year’s budget of $12,499,244 was an increase of 3.46 percent over the previous year.
The budget now goes to a public referendum vote on Tuesday, June 11, in each of the RSU 29 communities.
