SAD 1 proposes $1.1M annual budget increase
PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — With the start of all-day kindergarten and other spending needs, the budget at School Administrative District 1 is set to increase $1.1 million next year even as enrollment continues to decline.
The draft 2016-17 budget for the school district of Presque Isle, Chapman, Castle Hill, Mapleton and Westfield would total $25.2 million, a 4.5 percent increase over the $24.1 million budget for 2015-2016. It would also raise the local tax assessment from $8.4 million to $9.5 million, a more than 13 percent increase.
Much of the increase would be devoted to paying for all-day kindergarten — which the district is starting this fall — as well as special education and additional pay and benefits, SAD 1 superintendent Brian Carpenter wrote in a budget outline.
“This is the first time in several years that the board of directors has significantly increased the school budget,” he wrote. “During this same time costs have continued to rise and we have lost thousands of dollars in state and federal dollars.”
SAD 1 administrators offered the proposed budget at the last school board meeting in early March, posted it online, and are working on an update ahead of April’s meeting, while taking comments and questions from local residents.
The proposed budget would include 10 new positions in the district, including four new kindergarten teachers, a new technology integrator at Presque Isle High School, two new special education technicians and a new special ed teacher.
The proposed budget would rely on $11.9 million from the Maine state essential programs and services allocation and $9.5 million from the five municipalities.
The share from local taxpayers is up from around $6 million a decade ago, when there were 2,100 students in the district. In the late 2000s, state funding to SAD 1 increased to $14 million but then by 2012 trailed off to the current levels, around $12 million, after student enrollment fell by 10 percent in the span of five years. Today, there are about 1,800 students in the district.
Declining enrollment, which is projected to continue in Aroostook County as the overall population decreases, presents school districts with a bit of a paradox — spending more each year on fewer students.
“Declining enrollments only result in a savings when it declines enough to cut a position,” said Clinton Deschenes, SAD 1 assistant superintendent. “What happens more often is we lose students district wide so we can reduce a position and then the state simply reduces the funding with no savings for us to offset the loss.”
Some districts also face the challenge of maintaining or replacing aging school facilities. At Presque Isle High School, which opened in 1950, an area containing materials with asbestos is slated for removal this summer through a $557,000 state loan. Board members and administrators have begun discussing planning for long-term building needs — including for a new high school at some point.
