Brewer school officials face $500,000 budget cut

BREWER – The combined effect of increasing costs and shrinking revenues are wreaking havoc again this year on the local education budget.

It’s a problem that has bedeviled school officials in Brewer and many other Maine school systems since the state failed to provide its share in the school funding formula during the early 1990s.

As things stand, Brewer school officials have developed a $13,695,132 draft budget for 2002-03, Superintendent Betsy Webb and Business Manager Lester Young said this week. The $12,936,602 projected in revenues, however, would result in a funding gap of $758,530. That would translate to a $1.70 increase to the city’s tax rate, now at $24.38 per $1,000 in property valuation, Webb and Young said Thursday.

The draft budget is about $1.2 million more than the current budget, which wound up at $12,489,675 after three rounds of budget cuts last spring. Though last year’s school budget called for several staffing cuts, educational programs remained intact.

Webb and Young agreed that an increase of $1.2 million wouldn’t be palatable to city councilors, who have the final say on the budget, or local taxpayers, now paying the second-highest property tax rate in Penobscot County.

To that end, the school committee this week directed administrators to find $500,000 in budget cut options, in increments of $100,000. The school committee will review the proposed cuts March 18.

While considering budget cuts, administrators will weigh how each would affect students, staff and programs and the implementation of the Maine Learning Results.

“I believe that we are going to be able to make these cuts and still provide quality education for our students,” Webb said.

According to Webb, the city already has done much to support public schools. During this budget year, the city raised nearly $1.5 million above the $4.1 million foundation allocation the state required. The city also funded the first three years of the department’s technology plan, which next year shifts into the school budget.

More than half of the city’s property tax rate, or $13.21 per $1,000 in valuation, is dedicated to education. The state average is $11.87, she said.

Some reasons costs are increasing can be attributed to the 4 percent contracted pay increase for teachers and step increases for those eligible. Also, health insurance costs are expected to increase 20 percent. At the same time, however, Brewer expects to lose $283,000 in state subsidy, unless lawmakers increase funding for general-purpose aid to education.

Webb said school officials are considering some restructuring to compensate for decreasing enrollment, as well as increasing class sizes at the high school, where the student-teacher ratio is 20 to 1.

Staffing has increased since 1995, despite a 120-student drop in resident enrollment over the same period. A personnel comparison shows that the school department has 10 more educational technicians than it did in 1995, one more teacher and one more maintenance worker.

The number of support staff, custodians and maintenance workers has remained the same. The only staffing area in which there’s been a decrease is administration, down the equivalent of 1.5 full-time positions.