$7.2M budget approved at district meeting

Referendum vote today

GUILFORD — In June voters in the half dozen communities making up SAD 4 voted down an approximate $7.27 million budget, by a margin of about 75 to 25 percent, for the 2015-16 school year. On July 22 a new $7,201,600 spending plan, with a local assessment of approximately $3,736,000 or 6.38 percent more than last year, was brought forward to the district meeting at Piscataquis Community Elementary School.

The 20 articles making up the 2015-16 budget all passed — some by as few as five or six votes from the 77 registered voters in attendance — resulting in the spending plan being moved to referendum on Wednesday, July 29. Residents of Abbot, Cambridge, Guilford, Parkman, Sangerville and Wellington will head to the polls to vote either “yes” or “no” on the total budget.

“As you folks know we presented a budget in May,” Superintendent Ann Kirkpatrick said during the information session prior to the district budget meeting. “At this meeting in May it was approved but at the referendum it was voted down.”

“It didn’t pass this year, so we came back to the drawing board,” she said. “In waiting we got about $93,000 additional dollars more from the state.” Kirkpatrick said in addition to these new funds a new Learning-4-Life teacher at Pisctaquis Community High School was eliminated, no one had yet been hired for the alternate education position, as was this year’s summer school.

“Overall this budget is down $39,000-plus,” Kirkpatrick said compared to the spending plan voted down at the previous referendum.

“The change from last year to this year is $155,150.93, the change we went down is over 2 percent — 2.11 percent,” she said about the decrease from the 2014-15 budget of over $7,356,700.

“One of the big things people want to know is how does it work for our taxes,” Kirkpatrick said. She said during the budget development process officials from the district towns asked that the increases to assessments be held to under 8 percent “and we have done that.”

Under the proposed budget each of the six towns has an increase in its assessment, which is made up of local required, local additional and adult education earmarks. These figures are a 5.72 percent increase for Abbott to over $735,000; a 5.6 percent increase for Cambridge to over $238,000; a 6.39 percent increase for Guilford to $1,226,281; a 7.98 percent increase for Parkman to about $547,100; a 5.86 increase for Sangerville to approximately $795,700; and a 7.61 percent increase for Wellington to just over $193,500.

A question from the audience asked if the budget is down 2.11 percent from last year, why has the assessment for each community gone up. “It’s the funding formula from the state, they go by your valuation,” Kirkpatrick said.

Full financial information on the 2015-16 budget is available at www.sad4.org.