Despite pushback from some students, the local school board has endorsed a proposed fiscal year 2025 budget that would eliminate a handful of high school teaching positions while setting aside funds for a strategic plan and other new expenses.

The Maine School Administrative District 75 Board of Directors voted unanimously at its meeting on Thursday, April 11, to send the proposal to voters. The $55 million budget would constitute an increase of $2.3 million, or 4.4%, compared with the current fiscal year. MSAD 75 covers Harpswell, Topsham, Bowdoin and Bowdoinham.

The proposed budget increased slightly from initial projections, due in part to an unanticipated increase in health and dental insurance costs. The district’s finance office initially projected a 4% insurance cost increase for the coming fiscal year but later revised it to 6% based on new information.

The increase amounts to about $129,000, but the school board opted to pull an additional $65,000 from MSAD 75’s $8.3 million fund balance — a surplus left over from previous years — to help offset taxpayers’ added costs. In all, the proposed budget would use $865,000 of the fund balance.

Employee salaries and benefits comprise more than 70% of the proposed budget, district officials said, and teacher salaries are expected to increase by 7% next year with approved salary schedules and position changes. They said MSAD 75 also has seen continued cost increases for contracts.

In addition, the district noted that money is about to run out from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, created in 2020 by the federal government to address the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on schools. MSAD 75 has received more than $3.2 million from the fund.

                                                                                                                 Impact on towns

If approved by voters, the portion of the budget funded by local towns would increase by nearly 3.6% to about $31.6 million.

Harpswell’s share of that would be roughly $10.4 million, a 3.4% increase from the current year. Its passage also would trigger increases in town contributions of 3% from Topsham, 6.1% from Bowdoin and 3.5% from Bowdoinham.

Harpswell Town Administrator Kristi Eiane said the town’s property tax rate is estimated to rise slightly to $6.35 per $1,000 of valuation, an increase of 25 cents, or 4.1%.

“Based on certain assumptions the town is making at this time, Harpswell’s 2024 tax rate is expected to go from $6.10 to $6.35, with the proposed school budget accounting for (16 cents) of that increase,” Eiane said in an email.

The Harpswell Select Board set the tax rate in August last year. While the MSAD 75 assessment is the biggest factor, the rate is also affected by the municipal budget, the county tax, growth of the tax base from development and other considerations.

Nearly $400,000 of the proposed budget increase would be for new resources, including $100,000 to hire an outside strategic planning firm, according to the district. Another $300,000 would be spent on new positions and other items.

The rest of the budget increase — about $1.6 million — would be required to simply maintain current operations, and that’s after proposed spending cuts totaling more than $1 million.

Those cuts would include personnel reductions, such as the loss of four high school teachers in core subjects, including English and math. The budget also anticipates lower food service costs thanks to an increase in state funding.

                                                                                                               Students oppose cuts

Several students have attended recent school board meetings to criticize the proposed teacher cuts. Among them was Mt. Ararat High School junior Gretchen O’Connor, of Harpswell.

“The removal of those four teachers will result in 20 different class periods being removed, which will negatively impact our opportunities,” O’Connor told the board on March 28, adding that the high school’s relatively small classes have benefited her as a student with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. “Larger classes have been proven time and time again to be less productive for students.”

But district leaders have defended the proposed cuts, saying the high school’s average class size is just over 14 students, and that the cuts wouldn’t result in more than three additional students per class. They said no course offerings would be cut entirely as a result, while acknowledging that students could lose some scheduling flexibility.

The district has noted that the loss of the four high school teachers would be somewhat mitigated by the addition of a STEM outreach and academic support teacher to be shared between Mt. Ararat middle and high schools. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math.

Along with other proposed staffing changes, the budget would result in a total net loss of two teachers across the district, according to MSAD 75 Superintendent of Schools Heidi O’Leary.

Some board members acknowledged students’ concerns about the proposed teacher cuts, but administrators said undoing them would require other last-minute cuts and wouldn’t necessarily affect next year’s course scheduling, which is based primarily on student demand.

“You were incredibly persuasive — I wish I could give you what you’re asking for,” board member River Khoriaty, of Topsham, said to students attending the April 11 meeting. “But I hope you’ve heard that it seems like there’s nothing we could do at this point to put those positions back.”

                                                                                                               Planning firm stays in

The school board debated whether to cut the proposed six-figure line item to hire a strategic planning firm, but ultimately its members agreed that such a firm would benefit MSAD 75’s long-term planning efforts significantly.

In a March 20 letter to the community, O’Leary defended the proposal to spend up to $100,000 on an outside firm, to be chosen via a request for proposals, to develop a strategic plan for the district.

“As we look ahead, we recognize the importance of having a clear, comprehensive, and responsive strategic plan in place,” she wrote. “This plan will serve as a roadmap, guiding our decision-making processes, aligning our resources, and ensuring that we stay focused on our most critical priorities. By partnering with experienced education consultants, we aim to develop a strategic plan that is tailored to the unique needs and aspirations of our community.”

O’Leary said the district has decided not to move forward with plans to purchase what would have been its first electric school bus, despite having entered a lottery for a federal grant that would have helped fund the purchase. Some parents and school board members had expressed concerns about the budgetary impact, while others had expressed strong support.

A district budget meeting for voters is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 16, at the Orion Performing Arts Center at Mt. Ararat Middle School in Topsham. The final vote will be a budget validation referendum set for June 11.

The board voted unanimously to make the warrants — formal documents containing all the articles to be discussed and voted on at town meetings — closed, meaning no additional articles can be added.

Have a comment or news tip? Email J. Craig Anderson at craig@harpswellanchor.org.