Old Town budget deliberations continue

OLD TOWN – At Tuesday’s joint meeting of the Old Town City Council and School Board, the board asked the council to increase the school budget by $83,564. This was the second joint meeting in the budget deliberation process that needs to be complete by June 30.

School board chair Jim Dill said the debt service for the new elementary school on Stillwater Avenue should be spilt between the city and school.

“We were certainly under the impression that the debt service at the elementary school was not going to come out of the school’s operating budget,” Dill said. “It’s an extra $128,000 that we’re being hit with. We’d like to split that amount 50/50.”

Dill went on to say, “There were several places being cut that we as a board didn’t want cut.”

The board has a wish list with five items they would like to be placed back into the budget. The list includes a full-time, certified librarian for the Old Town Elementary School, currently under construction, at a cost of approximately $40,204. For the middle school the board would like $5,044 for soccer, $1,096 to pay for the after school program coordinator, $4,245 in salary and benefits for a 1/7 music teacher and a unified arts teacher with salary and benefits at a cost of $32,976.

The proposed school department budget includes $548,000 in intended cuts.

“Before the board even did this, we cut $140,000,” said Superintendent Owen Maurais. “In effect it’s $688,000 cut out of the budget.”

The school board’s projected budget is $12, 511,727.

Several options for covering debt service on the new school were discussed, including utilizing the city’s fund balance.

“We know there is going to be a tough crunch this year,” said Councilor Linda McCloud, who is also the school liaison for the council. “There is another option – to take $128,000 from the fund balance. I think this is a really good compromise.”

Counselor Gary Sirois questioned whether giving teachers a 4-4.8 percent pay raise was a good idea considering the economic outlook for the year.

“We’ve held city employee increases for 10 to 15 years,” he said. “I’ve worked for the city for 30 years, and I’ve never received 4.8 percent.”

Sirois added city employees pay up to 40 percent of their health care costs.

The superintendent said the percentages are deceiving.

“The 4.8 percent sounds like a lot but it went to making the beginning teachers’ salaries [equivalent] to state averages,” Maurais said. “The agreement was reached with the [teacher’s] union before the Georgia-Pacific event.” G-P’s property assessment dropped by around $8 million when it decided to retire one tissue machine and the associated converting lines in early April. The company contributed 35 percent of the city’s revenues last year.

The council did not take any action on the budget request, but said if the Herbert Sargent School could be utilized for municipal use, the money could become available.