Bangor sets school budget approval meeting

BANGOR – City councilors have set June 2 as the date for a special meeting to approve a school budget for the coming fiscal year.

For city officials, that’s earlier than usual.

Until now, the school budget has been developed and adopted by elected officials. The school committee developed it and presented to the City Council, which held first and second readings and then adopted it, usually during the last council meeting in June.

This year, however, city residents must vote to ratify the budget as part of the state’s school consolidation effort.

Though the Bangor School Department’s relatively large enrollment allowed it to sidestep an actual merger, the budget ratification process still must occur. Voters will have their say on June 10, in conjunction with the June primary elections.

But before the school budget can be sent to voters, it must be approved by city councilors. The council vote, according to current state law, must occur within 10 days of the budget validation vote, City Manager Edward Barrett said during a recent budget session.

As it stands, school officials are proposing a $41.5 million gross budget for 2008-09.

That amounts to a 3.89 percent increase from this year, though not as steep as the 4.29 percent increase approved a year ago, Superintendent Robert “Sandy” Ervin said during several recent budget discussions, including a workshop last week with city councilors.

Because much of the increase is expected to be offset by higher revenues – including a nearly 6 percent bump up in state subsidy – the effect on city taxpayers won’t be as stark as last year.

School budget documents show that the $41.5 million gross budget will be split almost evenly among city property taxpayers and other sources such as state subsidies, federal programs, and revenues from tuition for educating nonresident students, sports receipts, rentals, and sales and food services.

Tentative subsidy figures issued earlier from Augusta had indicated Bangor schools would receive more than $17.6 million in state aid for education, which, when combined with the $2.4 million expected from other revenue sources, would have set the total at about $20 million. That resulted in a $20.6 million local portion, which would have been 2.5 percent higher than this year.

When the final figures were released last month, however, local school officials learned the city would receive $237,840 more from the state.

After the school committee decided to apply that windfall to the portion of the school budget to be picked up by city property taxpayers, the projected increase in the local share dropped from 2.5 percent to about 1.3 percent.