SUMNER – SAD 39 Superintendent Richard Colpitts told school board members that the state’s tax-relief plan won’t significantly help Sumner, Buckfield and Hartford.
“What we need is around $6 million. That’s what the EPS (Essential Programs and Services) says we need to educate our kids,” Colpitts said at Wednesday’s meeting. “But then they say, Oh, by the way, we can only afford 84 percent of that.'” The EPS formula is set to be phased in over the next four years.
The state used the EPS formula to calculate how much funding each school district would require to achieve the Maine Learning Results. For SAD 39, that amount is just over $6 million. The district’s budget is about $5.7 million. The state, however, will issue funding based on $5.1 million, or 84 percent of the EPS figure.
Some savings
“So about $170,000, on paper, it looks like we’re getting. But that’s only if you have a $5.11 million budget, and that’s about a $500,000 difference between what they’re saying we need to raise to get what the state is going to give us – and what we currently spend and raise to provide the education that we’re providing now,” Colpitts said. “So about a half a million dollars would need to be cut if you wanted to raise only what they said was 84 percent of EPS, and that’s not realistic.”
The state’s model would provide a small savings to towns. “Assuming the budget has absolutely no increase whatsoever,” Colpitts explained, “there would be minor savings, and therefore a tax relief, of about $20,000 districtwide.”
Although the district’s budget has remained relatively stable for the past three years, Colpitts argued that it’s not practical to expect that there will be no increase in the budget next year. Teacher wages and benefits have already been negotiated, and many costs outside the district’s control, such as heating oil, have increased, he said.
“My proposal will not be zero percent (increase) on the current budget because I don’t see how we can do it and maintain the programs that we have,” Colpitts said. In a phone interview after the meeting, he said that when employee raises and other rising costs are factored in, a flat budget would require laying off two teachers a year.
Colpitts has attended selectmen’s meetings in Hartford and Buckfield to discuss his budget concerns, and he plans to attend the Sumner selectmen’s meeting Tuesday. He will also attend a workshop next week to learn more about the state tax plan’s effects on school funding.
Board chair Colleen Bullecks and Budget Committee head Stacey Raymond will join him at meetings in March to learn more about “how the rules have changed overnight,” Colpitts said.
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