A sparse crowd of roughly 100 residents has strongly endorsed Maine School Administrative District 75’s proposed $55 million budget for the upcoming academic year.
The nearly unanimous approval of the district’s proposed 4.4% budget increase occurred in a town meeting-style vote at Mt. Ararat Middle School’s Orion Performing Arts Center on Thursday, May 16. Attendance at the meeting was down 33% from 150 residents a year earlier.
Not every attendee was happy with the proposed budget. A handful of residents criticized aspects of it, including a line item to spend $100,000 on a strategic planning firm. One resident proposed slashing the district’s entire budget by 35%, but few attendees backed that plan.
Thursday’s meeting was the first half of a two-step voter approval process. The issue will now go to a budget validation referendum on Tuesday, June 11. In Harpswell, polls will be open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Harpswell Community School, 308 Harpswell Islands Road.
Despite pushback from some students and parents, the school district has proposed a 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 school board voted unanimously at its meeting on April 11 to send the proposal to voters. The budget would constitute an increase of $2.3 million compared with the current fiscal year. MSAD 75 covers Harpswell, Topsham, Bowdoin and Bowdoinham.
Employee salaries and benefits comprise more than 70% of the proposed budget, district officials have 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 such as facilities maintenance.
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.
If approved by voters, the portion of the school district’s 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 has 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%, with the proposed school budget accounting for 16 cents of that increase.
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 school district’s 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. Overall, the proposed budget would result in a net loss of two teachers across the district. It also anticipates lower food service costs thanks to an increase in state funding.
District leaders have defended the proposed teacher cuts, saying no existing course offerings would be cut entirely as a result, while acknowledging that students could lose some scheduling flexibility.
Topsham resident Jim Byrne spoke at Thursday’s budget meeting and said he supports both the strategic plan and the proposed budget overall.
He noted ongoing personnel shortages in districts such as Lewiston Public Schools and said the market ultimately decides how much money must be spent to retain teachers and staff.
“If we don’t keep up with inflation – if we don’t keep up with the costs of everything – then we’re going to be in an even worse situation,” Byrne said.
