SAD 70 board OKs budget

By Joseph Cyr
Staff Writer
    HODGDON — Faced with a gloomy economic forecast, and a stiff fine from the Department of Education, SAD 70 school board members gave their approval Monday to $6 million budget for the 2010-11 school year.
    The district will hold a public meeting on May 27 on the budget before it goes to a referendum vote in June.
    At $6,058,644, the budget represents a decrease of $190,205 (3 percent) from the current year’s budget. Last year’s budget was down $140,000 from the 2008-09 budget. Therefore, over the past two years, the district has shaved $320,000 from its bottom line.
    The district is receiving nearly $300,000 less from the state next year. Of that amount, $93,000 is a fine levied on the school district by the state for its failure to join a consolidation group, per state law. The district has been in discussion with SAD 29 to join RSU 29, which would consolidate central offices and create one school board between the two districts. SAD 70 will continue to be fined, in increasing amounts, for each year that it does not comply with the school consolidation law.
    Two teaching positions are among the cuts proposed in next year’s budget. The district has four teachers at the top of the pay scale who are retiring at the end of the school year, and only two of those positions will be filled.
    The district will not fill one elementary and one middle school post as a result of the cuts. The reduction at the elementary level will provide just one kindergarten teacher next year for an estimated class of 22 students.
    Vivian Hynick, a fifth-grade teacher at Mill Pond School and president of the Teachers’ Union, urged the board to reconsider its plan to cut the two teaching positions.
    “Today you have some hard decisions to make,” she said. “We are worried about our NECAP scores being compromised by having two teachers going back and forth.”
    Hynick said the district’s plan to have two existing teachers and an education technician absorb the workload of the two full-time positions not being filled would create a “patchwork” approach to education.
    “We know you [the school board] have to make some hard decisions,” Hynick said. “You have the education of our children to consider, as well as the [tax] impact on the communities. We understand that, but our concern is that these cuts are cutting an artery. I’m concerned with how this will affect the overall education of our children.”
    “This was a hard situation and we tried to balance it the best we could,” said board member David Cassidy. “It’s not perfect by any means, but we tried to take everyone’s interest to heart.”
    SAD 70 Superintendent Robert McDaniel encouraged the board to invite members of the teacher’s association to their budget workshops next year to ascertain if the cuts made had a larger impact than expected.
    “The finance committee has gone over and over this budget,” said board chairman Estella Lane. “It’s not a fun job. The reality is we have a responsibility to the taxpayers and this has been a crunch year. We have done everything we possibly could, but sometimes tough decisions have to be made.”
    “My concern is things are going to get worse,” board member Margaret Scott said. “If it does [get worse financially] where are we going to cut? What are we going to do?”
    Board member Traci Rockwell asked what would happen if come enrollment time this fall there are more kindergarten students than originally anticipated.
    “You would have go back to the towns and ask for more money,” McDaniel said. “Or you hire an Ed Tech to help for the remainder of the year. This budget has been drastically cut. There is not a lot of wiggle room.”