Work begins on 2019-20 RSU 68 finances
DOVER-FOXCROFT — With the calendar year nearing an end, RSU 68 officials have started preparations for developing the 2019-20 budget. During a Dec. 4 school board meeting Superintendent Stacy Shorey said the directors have now all received a budget meeting calendar.
“We will have our first meeting as a finance committee on Jan. 29 at 4 o’clock,” Shorey said. “The first meeting will be to discuss budget priorities for the upcoming year.”
“We will be looking at our budget,” SeDoMoCha School Principal Adam Gudroe said in his report to the board. “We have some grandiose plans but we know we have to be fiscally responsible.”
The current RSU 68 budget totals just under $11.56 million.
Observer photo/Stuart Hedstrom
NEW METALS ROOM AT SEDOMOCHA — SeDoMoCha Middle School art teacher Bobbi Tardif gave a tour of the new metals room during the Dec. 4 meeting of the RSU 68 school board, a new space for students to use that was created using grants and other funds Tardif worked to secure. Tardif shows one of the metals tools to, from left, board member Rebecca Prescott, Board Chair Jenny Chase, and Superintendent Stacy Shorey.
In other business Shorey said, “I have an update on the land in my notes to you. Right now I am waiting to hear back from (Dover-Foxcroft Town Manager Jack Clukey) and the selectmen.”
Earlier in the fall Shorey sent a letter to Clukey inquiring about the school district purchasing a municipal tax-acquired property that sits behind SeDoMoCha at 101 Harrison Avenue. The letter said the school board’s building and grounds committee proposed a purchase price of $1.
The town is willing to transfer the parcel for $1 to RSU 68, but should the district decide to sell the land in the future then the property would go back to the municipality. “So they would have first refusal,” Shorey said.
Potential options for the Harrison Avenue property, after some clean up has been taken care of, could be additional school parking or to help with expansion of the building.
The school board and administrators toured the new metals room off of middle school art teacher Bobbi Tardif’s classroom space. Through grants and other funding sources — a ballpark figure of $15,000 had been mentioned during last month’s school board meeting — Tardif has worked to convert a former storage area into a space for students to use as they work with the metals medium.
“We have put in electrical, a wall was torn down, and a new sink is plumbed in,” Tardif said. She said a ventilation system is still needed, as now she said she will take care of any work requiring chemicals at home for her students. The metals room includes ample safety equipment.
“I am going to do an adult ed class at some point too,” Tardif said. When asked, she said she was unaware of a similar classroom space in the region and certainly not in a middle school building.
“This is pretty neat because this all has been done with grants and not taxpayer money,” School Board Chair Jenny Chase said after a demonstration by Tardif.
Photos courtesy of SeDoMoCha Middle School art teacher Bobbi Tardif
AT WORK IN THE METAL STUDIO — SeDoMoCha Middle School students utilize the new metals room at the school in Dover-Foxcroft. A former storage area off of the art classroom has been converted into studio space.
