GRAY – SAD 15 launched the school budget season on Wednesday with 5-inch budget notebooks that weighed roughly 10 pounds.
The 11-member board and six appointed members of a citizen-based Budget Advisory Committee from Gray and New Gloucester will have a month to review the documents before beginning a series of workshops.
Reviews begin on March 5.
Budget workshops will be held for most of March, and the board is scheduled to get a recommendation on a proposed budget from the BAC by early April.
The board on May 4 may adopt a budget, which will then go to Gray and New Gloucester voters in referendum vote on June 14.
The proposed 2005-06 budget totals $17,895,695, a 4.75 percent increase over the current school budget.
Fixed cost increases account for 3.95 percent of the total budget. The current 2004-05 budget totals $17,084,408.
The spending package does not take into account projected revenues, nor does it refer to mill rates that are not known at this time, said Dr. Alan Rich, chairman of the board.
A tentative state subsidy on Feb. 1 has the district receiving $8,414,170, said Terry Towle, director of finance and operations for SAD 15.
Superintendent Virginia Burns said the budget manual is a draft compiled by the schools administrators and the board’s Finance Committee.
The budget reflects fixed cost budget increases, basic needs and does not exceed 5 percent over the 2004-05 school year.
No new program costs are included in the draft budget, with the exception of costs either needed or required to meet state law, said Burns.
Other new program costs are found in separate sections of the budget book, but plans to fund them will be considered by the board during the upcoming budget workshops. Included is an all-day kindergarten program and an assistant principal at the high school, for example.
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