By Gillian Graham

Staff Writer

Biddeford school officials are on track with next year’s budget but still must find ways to cut back, say city councilors.

City councilors weighed in on the school district’s proposed $30.2 million budget during a joint council and school committee workshop last Thursday at Biddeford City Hall.

 It was the second time the boards have discussed the budget, which councilors would like to hold to no increase compared to last year’s budget.

The school committee was expected to vote Tuesday, after the Courier publication deadline, on a final budget number. The council will consider that number following a March 18 budget presentation.

School Business Manager Terry Gauvin said the proposed budget is a 1.81 percent increase over the $29.6 million budget voters approved last year. Numbers presented to the council did not include $200,000 in savings from insurance costs that were lower than expected, she said.

Superintendent Sarah-Jane Poli said school officials “did their homework” and explored three budget scenarios at the request of Councilor Rick Laverriere. She said Lavarriere asked her to tell the council what the school budget would look like if it was cut $1.3 million.

 Eliminating more than $1 million would require cutting 20 positions, which Poli said would be a “smattering” of people from top to bottom in the district.

“To find $1.3 million in cuts, we’re actually going to impact students a great deal,” she said.

Poli said she would prefer to retain as much of her staff as possible and make cuts in areas that least impact students. Four or five staff members would be laid off if the city does not fully fund its share of the budget. If the city funds the local share at 97 percent, about $730,000 would need to be raised to support the proposed budget. 

The state requires that school districts spend a specified amount on essential programs and services each year. Biddeford’s current EPS allocation at 100 percent is about $28.2 million.

 Schools are now required to fund 100 percent of those costs and may be penalized by the state if they do not fully fund the programs. However, the Legislature currently is considering a bill that would waive that requirement.

 “I asked my administrators to go back to their budgets and reduce lines as much as possible,” Poli said.

Poli said the budget was reduced by more than $306,000, largely through reducing amounts of contracted services, supplies, textbooks and maintenance.

“We could probably live without those things for one year, but we’d certainly have to put that back in the next year,” she said.

If both the state and city fund their portions 100 percent, about $143,000 would need to be raised to fully fund the proposed budget, Gauvin said. City Manager John Bubier said the tax rate would increase about 14 cents for the city to fully fund the budget. If the budget called for raising $1 million, the tax rate would increase about 45 cents, he said.

“Fourteen cents ain’t asking for much, really. They still have to buy books,” said Councilor Ray Gagnon.

Councilor Jim Emerson said he would like to see a budget with no increase, but said cuts need to be made in areas that are sustainable.

“It’s very important we calibrate down to a lower base that can be sustained,” he said.

Councilor Pat Boston said a gradual shrinking in the school district’s population should give school officials some ability to cut back.

“Given what we know is coming in the future, it’s probably a good idea to tighten a notch in the belt this year,” she said.

“We did tighten our belts. There’s no increase to the budget whatsoever,” Gauvin said.

Boston said she also was concerned about cuts to the maintenance budget.

“We’re in the process of trying to bail ourselves out of one building (Biddeford High School) that didn’t get regular maintenance,” she said.

Poli and Facilities Manager Phil Radding said the district has a maintenance plan, but will cut back in some areas such as classroom painting.

“We don’t want to get ourselves into the same position as the high school again,” Poli said. “Maintenance is very important to us.”

Councilor Pete Lamontagne said he is “satisfied at this point with the way (the budget) is going,” while Councilor David Bourque said school officials should stick to a zero-percent increase.

“As close as you can be to zero, that’s where we need to be,” he said.

Council President Bob Mills said school officials are doing a “great” job developing a budget, which he would like to see as close to a  zero percent increase as possible – without cutting programs.

Laverriere said there are many reasons why officials need to keep the budget as low as possible without impacting students, but the proposed budget “is not looking too bad” at this point. He said a zero-percent increase should be in place only if it doesn’t affect students.

“I think the people of the city have spoken with passing the (high school renovation) bond,” he said. “The people in the city have proven time and time again education is important in this city.”

Staff Writer Gillian Graham can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 213.