HOULTON, Maine — The RSU 29 school board decided to restore several educational programs and co-curricular activities, including the French program, in a special meeting on Thursday night.
In a 182 to 65 vote, RSU 29 registered voters amended the proposed $16.4 million fiscal year 2024-2025 school budget to $16.9 million, adding money into regular instruction, athletics and student programming.
“Our spending per student is some of the lowest in the state,” said Houlton voter Mark Lipscomb, who led the charge to increase the district’s proposed budget. “The administrators, school board, teaching staff and support staff have done a spectacular job of running the school district on a threadbare budget. These cuts are a step too far.”
While the school board is not obligated to spend the revenue increase on the voter ask, the board deliberated for nearly two hours on Thursday to take voter requests seriously.
“The board brought forth information they received in phone calls and conversations with citizens about honoring the voters wishes of not losing programs but also being aware that we need to be fiscally responsible,” said Superintendent Joe Fagnant.
During the meeting, the board decided to reinstate the French and Breaking Ground (planting and seed growing) programs and the tech ed woods and metals program. However, not all positions originally cut from the budget were saved. A one quarter-time English teaching position, which was for AP English, one K-12 music position and one K-12 physical education position will still be eliminated.
The additional funds for regular instruction will also be used to bring back cuts in teacher supplies, programming, field trips and associated costs with the tech ed program, Fagnant said.
With the budget hike, the local contribution jumped to $1,222,782. The towns in the district are Houlton, Hammond, Littleton and Monticello.
The town share for next school year is $2.1 million required and $870,501 additional local. It breaks down for the four towns in the school district to: Hammond, $60,573 required by the state, $24,951 additional local; Houlton, $211,214 required, $870,500 additional; Littleton, $412,646 required, $169,982 additional; and Monticello, $381,974 required, $157,346 additional.
Houlton Town Manager Jeremy Smith said that such a significant increase will impact the town budget and raise taxes to accommodate that expense.
“The sudden changes are painful, surprising. and people feel like they are getting the rug pulled out from under them again, ” he said.
The mill rate is going to go up for the second straight year, and that’s going to surprise a lot of people, Smith said. While the final increase is not yet determined, Smith said it will likely be over two mills, or $2 more in taxes per $1,000 of assessed property value.
Prior to the town vote, the school board had approved increasing the town’s additional share by $750,000, cutting nine positions and eliminating the French and Breaking Ground programs and funding for several co-curricular activities to balance a $1.1 million deficit.
During Thursday’s special meeting, the school board also charged Fagnant and the district administration with overseeing the changes in the tech ed woods and metals program to create a new construction trades curriculum for high school students. Middle school students will still have access to a woodworking program.
“The future goal is to have high school students working with our local contractors to develop a program that gets hands-on teaching, exposure to construction from the ground up, and develop future trades workers,” Fagnant said. “The board also requested a review of the Breaking Ground program to ensure a connection with the agricultural community.”
