SKOWHEGAN — Voting on the proposed $32.33 million budget for 2012-13 is set for 7 p.m. Tuesday at Skowhegan Area High School.

The overall proposed budget is up 4.3 percent, or about $1.3 million, from the current year’s budget. Spending from taxation for the coming school year in School Administrative District 54 would be up about $469,000, or 3.5 percent.

District officials said the districtwide increase in local taxes would be the first since the 2004-05 budget year.

Taxpayers in each town would see varying degrees of property tax increases if the school budget passes as proposed. The owner of a $100,000 home in the district towns would see the following changes:

* Canaan: $48 increase

* Cornville: $63 increase

* Mercer: $31.40 increase

* Norridgewock: $51.88 increase

* Skowhegan: $23.62 increase

* Smithfield: $38 increase

Superintendent Brent Colbry said the state subsidy for the coming year comes in at $17.37 million, which is increasing largely because of increased special education costs. The state subsidy in the current budget is $16.52 million.

The special education budget this year alone is up about $230,000, he said.

There also is a projected 4 percent increase in insurance premiums and a 2 percent increase in pay for all district employees, including Colbry and other administrators.

Colbry said the salaries for eight teachers again will be paid for locally because of an end to federal funding for jobs under President Barack Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Colbry said 4.5 staff positions totaling $263,728 will be reduced or eliminated across the district, including the position of principal at North Elementary School, to make ends meet in the coming budget year. The position of a full-time music teacher will not be filled, and an art teacher and a school nurse will be reduced to two days a week. A literacy specialist’s position also will not be filled.

On the plus side of the ledger, Colbry said, the savings from a new telephone system in some district schools will save $30,000 this coming year, and the rate for electricity has been renegotiated at a lower cost. He said the cost savings from a switch to a biomass boiler system at the high school will be felt by October, when the system will be up and running.

After tonight’s vote, district residents will need to vote referendum style to validate the budget on June 12, the same day as the vote on a proposed $900,000 borrowing plan for paving, windows and doors in district schools.

Doug Harlow — 612-2367

dharlow@centralmaine.com

 

Copy the Story Link