SAD 46 budget to ease tax burden for most towns

DEXTER – The proposed SAD 46 budget represents good news to all but one of the towns in the district.

If the $8,842,900 budget is adopted by residents at a referendum on June 8, Ripley will see an increase of $556 in its education assessment while decreases will be seen in Dexter in the amount of $75,339; in Exeter, $12,950; and in Garland, $5,554, according to SAD 46 Superintendent Les Butler.

As proposed, property taxpayers in the district will be required to raise $262,362 for education – without a state contribution and a foundation allocation of $1,952,025 needed to get state subsidy. These two accounts combined reflect a decrease over last year of $93,288.

“The administrators and the budget committee, and ultimately the board, [have] worked hard to bring this budget in at a level that is a decrease to the district taxpayers as a whole,” Butler said Thursday.

Overall, the proposed spending plan contains a 6.19 percent increase over last year, or an increase of $515,760. Salaries and health insurance are behind the increase, according to Butler.

Among reductions made to the spending plan during budget deliberations were 31/2 education technician positions.

The proposed budget includes an anticipated balance forward of $389,000 and a carry-over of $180,000 in capital outlay earmarked for a proposed middle-primary school building project. The budget also includes $225,000 for professional services for the new building project, which will be offset by the $180,000 carried forward, according to Butler.

No programs were eliminated in the proposed budget, but a new program started recently – a day treatment program for special education students – actually generated $250,000 for the district. In addition, the district received $183,359 more in state subsidy.

These increases in revenue have helped offset the increase in the budget, Butler said.

An informational meeting on the spending plan will be held at 7 p.m. May 26, in the Dexter Regional High School cafeteria.

In addition to budget approval, residents at the June referendum will be asked, in a separate article, to approve an $800,000 bond issue to fund boiler replacement at the high school, do site and drainage work for parking at the high school and finish the last stage of the roofing project at Tri-County Technical Center. Directors plan to apply for state-revolving renovation funds, which, if approved, would reimburse some of the cost.