A proposed $17.9 million budget for Maranacook Schools will go to a districtwide vote at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the high school. It’s an increase of just over 4 percent from the current year’s.
“We were as fiscally responsible as we could be, and we kept the needs of the students at the forefront of any decision that we made,” said Betty Morrell, chairwoman of the school board.
She said negotiated salary increases and are largely driving the increase in the budget, as well as “some very specialized needs in special education.”
Brigette Williams, the district’s finance manager, said Friday that health insurance premiums rose 4.85 percent as well.
The budget approved April 10 by the board shows about seven new positions, including an additional elementary school principal.
“Currently, we have one elementary principal for Mount Vernon and Manchester and one for Readfield and Wayne,” Morrell said. “We would like to have one principal at Readfield, one at Manchester, and one for Mount Vernon and Wayne.
The latter two elementary schools have the lowest enrollment: 120 at Mt. Vernon and 68 in Wayne as of May 2, Morrell said. Enrollment at Readfield Elementary School is 212, and Manchester Elementary School has 182 students.
Morrell said the budget adopted by the school board calls for an additional high school social studies teacher in order to meet the state standards, two new special education education technician III posts, and 1.6 special education school nurse positions. One new high school education technician II post that had been proposed was eliminated during the budget process, according to Williams.
The school committee recommends passage of all the items on the warrant, which is available in the annual report posted on the district’s website at www.maranacook.org.
At last year’s annual budget meeting, 70 people cast votes in the one written ballot regarding the raising of additional local funds to support the proposal.
Here is the breakdown of total local funding that would be required from the four towns, along with student enrollment figures:
Manchester: $4.1 million, 370 students;
Mt. Vernon: $3.1 million, 248 students;
Readfield: $3.56 million, 412 students;
Wayne: $2.2 million, 149 students.
Betty Adams — 621-5631
Twitter: @betadams
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.