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SAD 37 Leaders Heed Voters, Cut $402,000 More

Posted on: Friday, 23 June 2006, 15:00 CDT

By Katherine Cassidy, Bangor Daily News, Maine

Jun. 23--HARRINGTON -- Those working in the six SAD 37 schools next year will be making do on a budget that is $95,648 less than the current year's budget.

Voters last week approved a budget of $7,737,826, which was $402,618 less than the $8.1 million budget that the district's directors had recommended. Wednesday evening, the directors went to work on cutting numbers even deeper, per the voters' orders.

"We already had made some major cuts in the budget, about $200,000 worth, but according to the towns, those cuts weren't deep enough," Superintendent Deborah Stewart said Thursday.

Directors found $255,000 of the $402,618 in savings partially by not replacing teachers in five vacancies that have been created by either retirements or new assignments.

That means that classrooms will be combined in the Cherryfield, Columbia Falls, Addison, Milbridge elementary schools -- in fact, in all but the Harrington school.

"Educationally we are doing fine, and there is a very strong commitment from the teachers and administrators," Stewart said. "But we are stagnating in that we are not able to offer any more.

"We are not able to offer foreign language or more technology instruction at the elementary level. We aren't offering the gifted and talented program. That's where I want us to go.

"All of this has been very time-consuming and it takes all your energy. I'd rather see us focus on strong academics."

The district also will get by without a curriculum coordinator, because Marianne DeRaps, who has held that position, saw the budget cuts coming and sought similar work in Lincoln. Her vacancy will not be filled.

All five of the elementary schools will retain their principals -- whose positions have been on and off the cutting floor since winter -- for one more year. Wednesday the directors considered formally terminating the principal positions after next year, but that motion wasn't supported.

The drastic cuts come after SAD 37 is receiving about $500,000 less from the state in "transition money" that the state provided last year, when its new Essential Programs and Services formula debuted.

The formula has been debated as unfair to rural schools, and reform from the state, with an eye toward helping rural schools, has been promised.

The district will receive about $300,000 in transition funds from the state, and next year's allowance is expected to be even less.

Over the winter and spring the board twice considered closing the schools in Columbia Falls and Cherryfield. But like all five principals, both schools got a reprieve.

Stewart, board members, district staff and taxpayers are all tired of the numbers game.

In some of the towns, parents recently have been talking up dissolution of the district and forming a union instead to give towns local control of their schools.

Stewart doesn't want to face a similar budget process next year.

"I don't see how we will get out of this until we consolidate further, and that would require closing schools, as emotional as that is for communities," she said.

"But it is extremely wearing to go through this. People wonder if they're going to lose their jobs or not. They wonder if their kids will have to go to a different school. I hope we can move through this so we can focus more on education."

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Copyright (c) 2006, Bangor Daily News, Maine

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Bangor Daily News (Bangor, Maine)

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