School, town officials meet to discuss budget

MADAWASKA – The school board and the board of selectmen met Thursday, so it must be close to budget time in the St. John Valley’s largest community.

It’s an annual session between the two groups during which discussion does not range far from where the dollars are going to come from and what is being done to increase the number of dollars coming in.

The annual town meeting is scheduled for June 18, and budgets need to be completed by Memorial Day week. Between now and then, the town and school department officials must develop their budgets and get ready to meet with the Budget Committee. In some years, the Budget Committee sessions can get hot.

“Budget time is coming, and what are we looking at?” Vernon Doucette, chairman of the board of selectmen, asked when he opened the session. “Where do we stand?”

Thomas Scott, superintendent for the Madawaska School Department, said it looks like the schools will suffer a $59,000 drop in general aid for education from the state due to a loss of students.

It could have been worse, he said. The town’s state valuation could have increased, and state aid would have been even lower. Instead, the town’s state valuation dropped this year.

The difference in the number of students in Madawaska graduating and those starting school is between 30 and 35 students each year.

“It may mean cutting some staff,” Scott said. “We are not sure, because we are only starting to look at figures.”

For the school department, salaries take about 75 percent of the budget.

While Doucette wondered aloud about cutting staff costs in the school department, school directors changed the direction of the talks.

“What are you doing to bring industry in town?” School Director Bert Lachance asked. “Why did MBNA go to Fort Kent instead of Madawaska? Is it easier for businesses to open in Fort Kent than in Madawaska?”

“We see businesses opening in Fort Kent, and here they are closing,” Lachance continued.

There weren’t many answers. Selectmen Mike Violette and Cliff Chasse attributed some of Madawaska’s retail problems to a lack of allegiance by Madawaska residents.

“We hurt ourselves by shopping across and down state,” Violette said.

“We need to educate our residents to shop here and help other people in the town,” Chasse said.

Town Manager Arthur Faucher said that not many stones are left unturned by municipal officials in seeking business and industry for Madawaska.

“Our most recent effort was a Quebec company, and we lost them to the Carolinas, who gave them all kinds of incentives we couldn’t,” he said.

He said an attempt to bring in a grocery store, because the town only has one major grocer, failed when reports showed profits would have been smaller than needed.

Many people shop for groceries across the border, Violette said.

“When we talk to consumers about shopping locally,” Faucher said, “The response is, ‘You won’t tell us where to shop.'”

School Director James Lavertu also raised concerns about Fraser Papers Inc. hiring people from outside Madawaska.

“That does not help us,” Lavertu said.

“Growth of a community is everyone’s business,” Superintendent Scott said. “Many people talk negatively about Madawaska, and maybe we should talk about the things we do well.”

In the end, as they do each year, the school board and the town council said each would do what they could to keep budgets in line.

The general consensus was that such sessions are very informative, and maybe they should be held quarterly. The suggestion has been made before, during previous annual sessions.