HOULTON – The SAD 29 board on Monday approved a budget for the 2003-2004 school year of $9,094,954.

The figure represents an increase over this year of $142,224, or about 1.6 percent. The district’s share of the budget is $2,330,237.

The budget for 2002-2003 is $8,952,730.

SAD 29 comprises the towns of Hammond, Houlton, Littleton and Monticello. Residents of those towns will have the opportunity to vote on the proposed budget at the district’s annual meeting scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday, June 9, at the Southside School.

The board also voted Monday to eliminate next year a first-grade position at the Wellington School in Monticello because of declining enrollment. The position will be left vacant as a result of a retirement.

Superintendent Susan Lolley told the board that as enrollment has declined, classes at the elementary school have gotten smaller. Without the staff reduction, the pupil-teacher ratio next year at the school would be 6- or 7-to-1.

“We’d like to keep those [teaching] positions going, but there comes a point where too small isn’t effective,” Lolley said.

The first grade will become part of a combination grade with kindergarten next year.

Districtwide, enrollment dropped by 18 pupils in the past two months and by a total of about 25 since last Christmas.

Each student who leaves the district results in a loss two years later in state funding to SAD 29 of about $5,000 per pupil, or about $125,000, based on this year’s decline.

The board on Monday unanimously voted to keep a teaching position in the business education department at Houlton High School, despite a recommendation to eliminate it because too few students had signed up for the class.

The class, taught by Fred Griffith, primarily is technology-based. Students are taught how to do Internet research, desktop publishing, Web design, computer graphics and other applications.

Three students, a parent and Griffith expressed concern that the loss of the program would leave a significant gap in the district’s ability to provide technology education in high school, despite efforts to incorporate such instruction into the district’s curriculum at all grade levels.

“We must do more than have junior high laptop [computers] available in the library,” Griffith said, adding that the district should make a greater effort to encourage students to become technologically literate.

The board voted to eliminate a special education educational technician III position at the high school and add a special education teaching position.

In addition, the board approved creating a half-time gifted and talented teaching position. An educational technician III has overseen the program.