Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE – Community members in SAD 1 adopted a 2009-2010 budget of $22,875,939 – $7,511,580 of which would be passed on to property taxpayers – last Wednesday night.
The district budget meeting was held June 3 at the Presque Isle High School auditorium.
Superintendent Gehrig Johnson said a “substantial loss” in revenue from the state has caused some problems for the district.
“We will be losing almost $316,000 in state funding next year due to an overall reduction in state support for schools,” he said. “The loss will be partially offset by $233,000 in federal stabilization funds. Stabilization funding will expire at the end of next year. We are being very careful not to allocate this short-term federal resource to continue programs, especially in light of the continuing difficult economic times we are likely to face for the foreseeable future.”
Calling the budget “relatively flat,” Johnson said the proposal represents a 2 percent overall increase over 2008-2009.
“For the third year in a row, we will hold the local K-12 education mill rate of 11.6 mills for district municipalities,” he said. “Because state valuations have risen year-over-year by an average of about 12 percent for our five municipal members – compared to the state average of 6 percent – we will be asking for a corresponding increase in local property tax dollars.
“[With state valuations] we’re at the mercy of the state,” said Johnson. “This 12 percent increase in the valuation of the city is the largest we’ve seen in 25 years.”
Recognizing that salaries and benefits represent the lion’s share (about 73 percent) of the budget, Johnson said the district has planned for a cost-of-living wage increase for all employees.
“For the first time in a decade,” he said, “there will be no increase in the monthly medical insurance premiums charged by our insurer. We suspect that this relief from the usual double digit annual percent increase is temporary.”
With just under 2,000 students in the district, Johnson said SAD 1 does extremely well with limited funds to educate local children.
“The state keeps projections based on per pupil cost … what it costs to educate a child,” he said. “It’s a barometer that we use to gauge our spending levels versus other systems. Our 2007-2008 per pupil cost was $10,084 compared to the state average of $10,658. That’s $574 per child under the state average. If you compute that out over the number of children that we have, it puts it at about $1.1 million that this district spends less than an average system in the state of our size.
“We feel we have an excellent school system and that’s borne out by data and statistics at the state department. We’re in that top tier, or top 20 percent,” said Johnson, “but our cost per pupil to do it is a lot less. We’re not at the average; we’re proud of that. I’m confident that this budget provides the level of education and services that people have come to expect from SAD 1.”
After electing Mike McPherson as moderator to preside over the meeting (Article 1), residents approved the following items:
• (Article 2) $8,328,746 for Regular Instruction.
• (Article 3) $2,430,211 for Special Education.
• (Article 4) $1,534,370 for Career & Technical Education.
• (Article 5) $750,926 for Other Instruction.
• (Article 6) $1,845,303 for Student & Staff Support.
• (Article 7) $490,127 for System Administration.
• (Article 8) $1,012,641 for School Administration.
• (Article 9) $1,978,061 for Transportation and Buses.
• (Article 10) $3,593,505 for Facilities Maintenance.
• (Article 11) $712,050 for Debt Service and Other Commitments.
• (Article 12) $200,000 for All Other Expenditures including School Lunch.
• (Article 13) $4,124,893.50 in local tax dollars to receive all of the available state support for education.
• (Article 14) $682,957.73 for the annual payments on debt service previously approved by the legislative body for non-state funded school construction projects, non-state-funded portions of school construction projects and minor capital projects, in addition to the funds appropriated as the local share of the school administrative unit’s contribution to the total cost of funding public education from kindergarten to grade 12.
• (Article 15) $2,551,495.77 in additional local funds, which exceeds the state’s Essential Programs and Services allocation model by $1,912,190.19. A written ballot was required for this article. It was approved 73 (Yes) to 2 (No).
• (Article 16) $22,875,939 for the board of school directors to expend for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2009 and ending June 30, 2010 from the school administrative unit’s contribution to the total cost of funding public education from kindergarten to grade 12 as described in the Essential Programs and Services Funding Act, unexpended balances, tuition receipts, state subsidy, federal ARRA stabilization funds, and other receipts for the support of schools.
• (Article 17) Appropriate $270,313 for Adult Education and raise $152,233 as the local share; with authorization to expend any additional, incidental, or miscellaneous receipts in and for the well being of the adult education program.
Seventy-five people attended the June 3 district budget meeting. The budget was adopted in just over a half-hour.
For the second year, the district budget approval requires a two-step process. In addition to the district-wide budget meeting, state law required a budget validation referendum in each of SAD 1’s five municipalities. The validation referendum was held June 9.
