HOULTON, Maine — While some school districts are facing a severe financial crunch, the same does not hold true for RSU 29.
The district’s finance committee got its first look at preliminary budget figures Wednesday, March 29, and agreed to move forward with Superintendent Ellen Schneider’s proposed $13.3 million spending plan for the 2017-18 school year.
At $13,331,159, the proposed budget is an increase of $175,887 (1.8 percent) over last year’s figure. Schneider said the district is targeted to receive more money from the state next year, but will have to come up with more local funds to receive that state money.
“I am confident this is a good budget,” Schneider said. “There are some things that I am putting on hold, but I can only do that for so long.”
Some of those projects include upgrades to the heating systems in all of the schools and paving projects. The district also needs to start thinking about the potential replacement of Houlton Elementary School, which was built in the early 1970s, she said.
The proposed required local share for RSU 29 is $3,276,761, with the state kicking in $9,173,398. Because the district’s budget is more than these two figures combined, an additional local amount of $200,000 is needed to balance the budget.
The district could use money from its undesignated fund balance, as it had done in previous years, to avoid the additional local amount, but Schneider did not recommend that course of action. The district’s surplus account is estimated at about $750,000.
Two positions — a second-grade and fifth-grade teacher — will be eliminated under the proposed budget, but no individuals will lose their jobs, Schneider said. One of those positions is a retirement that will not be filled, while the other involves converting a fifth-grade teacher to fill a third-grade vacancy.
The full board will receive a copy of the budget on Monday, April 3, and will set dates for the district budget meeting for members of the public to ask questions of the spending plan.
