Attempts had been made to have no increase in the budget.

SUMNER – Following several months of budget deliberations the board of directors for SAD 39 approved a budget proposal for fiscal year 2005 of $5,753,828.93 late last week, which shows a slight .37 percent increase over fiscal year 2004 of $21,570.94.

The final figure came after attempts had been made to complete a zero-based plan, but the board was still pleased that the Budget Committee and school staff were able to come up with a figure as close to a zero increase as they did.

Board Chairman Terry Hayes said, “It was our intent to meet the will of our constituents by bringing in a budget that was somewhere between a zero increase to half a mill increase, and this budget has a paltry mill rate increase of .04 percent and it creates property tax relief. Taxpayers should be very happy.”

To keep the budget down, several cuts were made at the staff level. Among those a sixth-grade position created by a retirement will not be filled, and a kindergarten position will be reduced to a half-day time slot. Also, a business teacher, one special-education position, a middle school general education teacher will be cut and a foreign language position will be reduced from full time to two-fifths.

Speaking in regard to the cuts, Superintendent William Shuttleworth said, “No one likes to cut into the teaching staff, but when we are faced with the directive given, our administrative staff worked hard to recommend cuts that kept our progress towards excelling on the Maine Learning Results.”

He added that it was felt the cuts could be made successfully due to a decreasing school enrollment over the past 10 years.

The details of the budget breakdown is as follows: fund balance, $128,902.00, up $16,902 or 15.0911 percent; local share, $1,461,839.63, down $53,433.88 or 3.5264 percent; local share W/O, $590,323.38, up $60,510.33 or 11.421 percent; state revenue, $3,526,213.92, down $757.51 or 0.0215 percent; other income, $46,550.00, down $1,650.00 or 3.4232 percent; bottom-line, $5,753,828.93, up $21,570 or 0.3763 percent.

The breakdown for the three district towns will be: Buckfield, $877,243.99, up $7,076.45 or 0.3095 percent; Hartford, $700,248.02, up $4,959.56 or 0.7133 percent; Sumner, $474,671.00 down $585.31 or 0.1232 percent; and total towns’ share, $2,052,163.01, up $7,076.45 or 0.3460 percent.

The next step in the fiscal year 2005 budget process will come on Tuesday, June 15, when the annual budget meeting will be held at the Buckfield Jr./Sr. High School starting at 7 p.m.