SAD 29 schedules workshop on budget

HOULTON – Taxpayers in SAD 29 will get an initial indication of what the school year’s budget could look like when the board of directors gathers for a budget workshop on April 21.

Superintendent Steve Fitzpatrick said recently that the workshop is intended to “crunch some numbers” and see what SAD 29’s financial future might look like under the state Department of Education’s new Essential Programs and Services funding model.

The new funding formula is designed to outline what individual school districts should spend on educational programs to meet Maine Learning Results.

“At this point, I believe that we are under what the state says that we should be spending under 100 percent of EPS funding,” Fitzpatrick said, adding that 100 percent of the district’s EPS funding would be $9.8 million a year.

SAD 29’s total budget last year was $9.5 million.

This year, however, schools across the state will be funded at only 84 percent of EPS for the fiscal year 2005-2006. The figure is slated to increase to 100 percent in 2009-2010.

Fitzpatrick said that he is going to work hard to try to keep the school budget down this year, and said that he will continue the practice of bringing surplus funds accumulated by the district forward to offset taxation.

“Each year, we bring forth as much money as we can to lower taxes,” he said. “If we did not do that, the taxpayers would have to pay that additional money to the district … I think that the school board is going to work hard this year to see that we keep the burden on the taxpayer as low as we possibly can.”