SAD 5 budget scenario sounds bleak > Superintendent addresses board members

ROCKLAND — “Those who have will get more. That’s the way the ball bounces,” SAD 5 Superintendent Donald Kanicki told his school board Thursday night. He said that no one in SAD 5 should expect any relief from Augusta on school funding problems.

No one was surprised.

SAD 5 has been among the funding losers as it saw the state subsidy drop a whopping $3.2 million, an average of $800,000 a year, since the 1990-91 school year. That loss must be made up by eliminating school programs or increasing tax bills, with no end in sight, the superintendent said.

The occasion was the annual public hearing on the budget, which only two people attended. That made the day complete for Kanicki, who said he “wasted” 90 miles, several hours and the cost of breakfast during the morning spent with legislators in Augusta. Kanicki took the morning off to confer with legislators on the mounting financial woes of education funding.

“They told us there would be no extra money,” Kanicki said. “They wasted my time.”

The superintendent said rich communities such as Kennebunk, Cape Elizabeth and Old Orchard Beach will get inflated subsidies “while others are hurting.” Aroostook County schools will be forced to eliminate more teachers to meet shortages in funding. The SAD 5 board now will start work on its annual budget, a job that gets harder each year, Kanicki said.

The only two souls who cared to discuss the matter with the board on Thursday night were Owls Head School teacher Thomas Molloy and Douglas Curtis, husband of a fourth-grade teacher at McLain School.

While appreciating the financial woes of the district, Molloy said he is teaching social studies with a 1980 textbook and his class has not seen the art teacher for a month. The world has changed a great deal since 1980, Molloy told the board. With all the other financial priorities, Molloy asked the board to consider new textbooks in kindergarten through grade six.

He also asked for the addition of at least a part-time art teacher for the elementary grades, if not an additional full-time position. There is always support for sports and extracurricular activities, but Molloy asked the board to place the emphasis back on the curriculum and on basic education.

Curtis asked the school board to fund the football program, which was reinstated last year by sports boosters and a $30,000 fund drive. More than 1,000 people donated to the fund drive which also established a youth football program as a feeder for the varsity football program. With football reinstated at Rockland District High School, perhaps it will be considered at the new high school being discussed by the SAD 28 board in Camden, Curtis said.

Most of the more than 50 students who tried out for football would not have played another sport if football were not reinstated, Curtis said.

Language teachers at the high school are “overwhelmed” by large classes and education is suffering, Curtis said. He asked for additional part-time language arts teachers.

As suggested by former school board member Peter Sulides, perhaps taxpayers should “bite the bullet” and support education locally with state and federal subsidies only thought of as “icing on the cake,” suggested Chairman Mary Waterman.