SAD 63 chief wary of Palesky tax plan

HOLDEN – There are big questions and few answers about how anti-tax advocate Carol Palesky’s tax cap initiative would affect SAD 63 funding, if voters pass it in November, but Superintendent Louise Regan said Monday that she’s concerned.

“The information that I’m hearing about this is the services of our police, of our fire and one-third of the budget for the school would be cut,” she said during Monday’s school board meeting.

On the agenda was a resolution for the board to officially oppose the Palesky measure. Board member Dion Seymour and Chairman Don Varnum both said they didn’t know how they were going to vote in November and after discussing the matter, the board decided to continue the debate at their Oct. 4 meeting.

The Palesky initiative would cap property taxes at $10 per $1,000 of valuation. It also would limit assessments to an increase of only 2 percent a year as long as the property remains in a family.

Under the tax cap initiative, the amount of property tax paid in the SAD 63 communities of Clifton, Eddington and Holden would decrease.

Regan said major cuts could mean chopping extracurricular programs such as sports and art and could mean a “skeleton crew” of teachers.

“There is a question of whether or not you could keep your schools open,” she said. “This could be devastating to our community and to the communities of the state. It’s scary.”

In Holden, county taxes and the SAD 63 assessment would need to be paid first, leaving “whatever funds, if any” for the town, Town Manager Larry Varisco said in a July 27 letter to Regan.

“One thing is certain, both the SAD and the town operations will look dramatically different if Palesky passes,” he said.

In the letter, Varisco also stressed that voters “need to be assured that additional funds received by the municipalities and school as a result of the passage of Question 1 will be used to reduce taxes.”

In June, voters around the state approved Question 1, which forces the state to pay 55 percent of education costs.

A law passed by the 1984 Maine Legislature recommends the state fund 55 percent of the cost of education, but the state has never hit that mark. This year the state paid for about 43 percent of education costs with the remainder paid locally through property taxes.

Community leaders in Eddington, Clifton and Holden have signed resolves that ask the SAD 63 board to “clearly and expressly identify” the additional funds and to apply 90 percent to 100 percent of the additional funds toward reducing property taxes for its three communities.

The additional education funding from Question 1 should be granted in the 2005 fiscal year; however, the state is changing its funding model and because of that and unfunded mandates, there is no way of determining how much the district will get, Regan said.

She added that she thought it was “premature to make specific commitments” but said the district would work hard to lessen tax burdens.

“We are committed to keeping the taxes in our communities as low as we can and providing the best programs we can,” she said.