LEWISTON – It won’t be a year of growth, but it shouldn’t be a year of cuts, Lewiston School Superintendent Leon Levesque said Monday of his proposed budget.

Levesque hasn’t unveiled his school spending proposal. He and other school districts are waiting for the Maine Department of Education to release how much money districts will receive, Levesque said. State revenue numbers were given to school departments last week, but an error in special education costs prompted the state to recalculate the numbers. Levesque expects to receive the latest numbers this week.

Meanwhile, he and the Lewiston School Committee have begun to go over the budget.

“I’m trying to maintain a status quo budget,” Levesque said Monday. “It all depends on the revenue picture.”

Levesque said he’s working on “the tightest budget we can produce.” So far, he has not identified any cuts. “We already have high class sizes; we’re trying to maintain our staff. We’re below what we should be expending” according to the state Essential Programs and Services formula. But depending on how high fuel costs go, “we may have to revisit” the no-cut budget.

At this point, Levesque’s anticipating the worst-case scenario would be asking taxpayers to spend $324,000 more. If that happened, the local share in the $44 million-something budget would go to $15.19 million. How much Lewiston taxpayers have spent on education in recent years has held steady, Levesque said. In 2004-05 it was $14.93 million.

This year, Lewiston’s property valuation has risen 16 percent, 3 percent higher than the state average. Higher property values means less from the state.

One change in this year’s state funding formula is that Lewiston and Portland are getting less for their large English Language Learner, mostly Somali, student population. Last year, Lewiston received nearly $2 million to teach ELL students; this year it’s receiving $400,000 less for the same number of students, Levesque said.

He blasted the change, saying he has contacted the Lewiston delegation.

“This is based on a study that is inconsistent and not thorough,” Levesque said. The state hired an expert to conduct an analysis of ELL program costs, “then said this is now state policy” without peer review.

Levesque also took issue Monday with two sets of figures released by the Department of Education. They were that Lewiston stands to receive $112,000 more this year; and that in the last three years Lewiston has received $16 million more from the state.

Lewiston does appear to be receiving $112,000 more, Levesque said, but said that number includes a $735,113 debt service payment for the new Farwell Elementary School. The $735,113 “is dedicated money. It doesn’t go for services. If you took that out, we’re getting $623,000 less,” Levesque said.

It used to be debt service was not included in the revenue amounts the state gave districts to operate schools. That number would appear in a different line showing what the state was spending for a new school, Levesque said. “They only give the information for the message they want.”

As to the $16 million the state said Lewiston has received in the past three years, Levesque said initially he could not understand where that figure came from. In the past four years, Lewiston has received $2 million more a year, or about $8 million, he said.

“Then I found it,” Levesque said. The state calculated the $16 million by adding new money the city received in one year to the next year, an accumulative style. “That gives you an idea of how they get their message out: ‘Don’t complain, you’ve been treated well.'”

With the $8 million Lewiston schools have received from the state in recent years “we’ve tried to build a strong infrastructure. We take care of our buildings. We’ve been somewhat progressive but not exuberant. And a lot of the money has gone for ELL programs.”

Lewiston schools have “also said, ‘How is the local taxpayer doing? You just can’t take it all in and spend.”

In 2005-06 the school department gave the city $1.04 million for property tax relief. The year after that, $338,594. Last year, the school department gave $253,000, plus took over $173,000 in services (maintaining fields) that the city used to be responsible for.

Even though state revenue numbers are arriving late, the School Committee will be ready to meet with the Lewiston City Council about school spending on March 27, and ready for the May 6 local referendum.