SAD 32 voters OK $3.3 million budget

    ASHLAND, Maine – Approximately 110 voters comprising SAD 32 – Ashland, Garfield Plantation, Masardis, Oxbow Plantation and Portage Lake – approved the 2007-08 budget of $3,395,863 during the district’s referendum vote June 25.
Superintendent Gehrig Johnson said all six articles passed overwhelmingly.
    “All of the articles were approved by at least 75 percent of those who voted, which is very high,” said Johnson. “Anytime you get 75 percent of a vote shows strong support from the community.
“We’re pleased with the process,” he said. “The communities are very supportive of their schools, and this provides a budget that will provide for the needs of the students of SAD 32 very well.”
Johnson said while the budget shows a 1.5 percent increase over last year, total local education property taxes will be reduced by $108,335 for the five municipalities.
“Every municipality will be billed less based on SAD 32’s fiscal year and based on state valuations,” he said.
Property tax levies, including adult education, will be assessed as follows: Ashland, $672,729, or a decrease of $89,947; Garfield Plantation, $51,792 ($5,247); Masardis, $209,266 ($5,031); Oxbow Plantation, $61,107 ($5,848); and Portage Lake, $356,651 ($2,262).
“In the budget, we made provisions for a cost-of-living increase in wages and salaries for all employees along with meeting the district’s share of increased health insurance premiums,” said Johnson. “We also included funding for a full-time assistant principal and a required special education teaching position.”
“Plans also call for the replacement of a school bus,” Johnson said, “and we are confident we have covered any potential increases in heating fuel, bus fuel, and electricity.”
The day following the referendum, the SAD 32 board of directors met to formally accept the results of the budget vote.
During the June 26 meeting, directors also:
• Recognized two retirees – Mary Caron and Judy Hafford. Caron started teaching in 1972, and had been teaching fourth-grade at Ashland Central School, while Hafford was a bus driver/custodian for many years.
• Adopted the educational specifications for the new pre-kindergarten to grade 12 school in Ashland.
“We’ve created a written vision for how the building will look, and that was passed unanimously by the board,” said Johnson. “Now it has to be submitted and approved by the Bureau of Construction in Augusta.”
The 80-page document was created by a 25-member committee charged with drafting the “ed specs.”
“We’ve been working on it for a couple of months now,” the superintendent said. “We were given seven broad questions to answer that all have to do with developing a vision for what this school will look like and how we will tie it into the Learning Results and the needs of the community to ensure that the students receive the best education possible.”
Johnson said he hopes to have the “ed specs” OK’d by the Bureau of Construction within the next two weeks.
• Hired Julie Cyr, formally from Stearns High School, as a pre-kindergarten teacher, and Diana O’Clair as a fifth-grade teacher. O’Clair had most recently been teaching for nine years in SAD 43 (Rumford).