Guilford selectmen displeased with SAD 4 budget

Staff Report

   GUILFORD — The Guilford Board of Selectmen met on May 5 with a rather routine agenda, but expressed “widespread displeasure” with the proposed School Administrative District 4 budget.
   According to minutes of the session, Guilford’s share of the $7.45 million budget could go up as much as 20 percent this year.

   While the overall SAD 4 budget is up only 1.23 percent, the local share is expected to increase more because the district has lost around 70 students during the past year, dropping the population to 618. This means that the state will be contributing $211,000 less to the district than last year, according to SAD 4 Superintendent Ann Kirkpatrick.
   The SAD 4 Board of Directors may make adjustments to the budget prior to the district meeting on Thursday, May 28.
   Other items discussed at the meeting include the “slow and painful” process of shopping for a new truck to replace a 1990 International that’s no longer serviceable. Town Manager Tom Goulette wrote that there is a “dearth of good, used wheelers out there and new dump trucks are expensive.”
   The Piscataquis River Festival, set for July 25 with a Wizard of Oz theme, has been receiving donations for fireworks and $1,050 has been collected as of last week.
   Goulette also reported that the town’s sand supplier for the past several years has changed their process, so they no longer produce “the washed sand that we prized so highly in the quantity we need.” Bids are going out for sand from three area contractors and the board will probably make a decision at its June 2 meeting on a supplier.