BETHEL – The SAD 44 Board of Directors presented its $8.9 million budget to a handful of people at the annual hearing Tuesday night. Attendees included Selectman Steve Bies of Woodstock and Town Manager Scott Cole of Bethel.

Superintendent David Murphy told the gathering he felt the finance committee and administrative staff had done the best possible job of keeping the budget as low as possible in the current hard economic times.

“We took the negotiated increases and other things we knew we had no control over and went from there,” he said. “We knew last October that we were facing a substantial increase to the taxpayer. But the administrative team and finance committee worked hard for months to keep the increase as low as possible. They started with a 7.3 percent increase and pared it down to approximately 3.5 percent for the people on the average.

“In reaching the final figure we looked at the history of expenditures versus line items and the administrators and finance committee worked the increase down from there. Although I don’t like to use the term zero based budget this budget is as close to a zero base as this district has seen in long time. The final figure is a 3.22 percent increase overall with a 3.5 percent increase for the local share,” he said.

The dollar increase is $277,955 more than the $8,629,135 approved last year.

The local share to be raised is $5,566,607.

The annual budget referendum is June 10 in the district towns of Andover, Bethel, Greenwood, Newry and Woodstock.

Following the hearing, the board voted unanimously to support a combined Maine Educational Marketing Corporation grant proposal involving Telstar High School and Project Opportunity.

Murphy said MELMAC is an agency that lends money to student who wish to go on the college. He said there are two kinds of grants: One is for school only and the second for school and community. SAD 44 is applying for the second type.

“For several years a group of people from SAD 44 has offered a program for students called Project Opportunity, and they have raised more than $100,000 for the program,” he said. Project Opportunity provides after-school programs for enrichment, academics, social skills and more. It gives students a chance to experience many things beyond regular classroom work,” he said.

The grant, if approved, will provide $5,000 for planning and $30,000 for up to three years to help develop more opportunities for students.


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