HARRISON — The SAD 17 Board of Directors got a first glimpse of Superintendent Rick Colpitt’s proposed $37.65 million budget for 2015, which includes measures to reduce class size at district elementary schools.

The budget for fiscal years 2014-15 is 4.75 percent greater than 2013-14 and represents an overall 4.5 percent increase in what town’s will pay to educate the districts 3,400 students.

On Monday, Colpitts told about 30 people – directors, teachers, and students – that programming from last year will either remain the same or be added onto.

New spending initiatives include paying a $201,690 lease payment for access to Oxford Hills Middle School South Campus in Oxford, $326,908 for the second year payment for technology – mostly laptop computers for students – at the middle and high schools, and $45,000 for technology integration teachers at both levels.

The budget also includes $25,000 to start a preschool program at the Hebron Station School, $450,000 for teacher retirements which school districts are now responsible for, and $500,000 in health insurance increases, the second year in a row premiums have grown.

If approved, tax increases for the eight towns comprising the district will range from 3.53 percent in Harrison, to 6.62 percent in Oxford. Budgets are annually approved by voters in June.

The increase in the budget and subsequent local tax increases are driven by state mandated increases in the amount of money SAD 17 spends per student, a formula derived by Maine DOE called Essential Programs and Services.

SAD 17 is in the first year of a three-year plan to raise spending to 100 percent of EPS. It, along with several other school districts, was granted a three-year waiver from the requirement. A bill to extend the waiver was rejected by legislatures last summer.

Even with the $1,708,338 increase in spending, current projections place the budget $656,189.46 – 3.42 percent below the EPS funding, and the state has given SAD 17 until 2017 to raise spending or face equivalent cuts in state funding.

By law, Maine’s Department of the Education subsidizes 55 percent of all schools. On a local level, funding varies by what the state thinks each town in a district should pay, and towns with higher property values receive less, if any, aid.

For 2014-15, the state subsidized 47 percent of SAD 17’s budget to the tune $17,729,163, about $950,000 more than last year.

Yet school officials say the sum, which has incrementally increased since it was cut by $2 million in 2011, is misleading as almost half of it – some $450,000 – represents teacher retirement, a cost the state shifted to local communities this year.

According to 2012 figures, out of 220 school districts in Maine, only 18 school paid less per-pupil than SAD 17; it currently spends $8,033 per student, about $1,694 – 17.42 percent – below the state average.

Of the 25 largest school systems in the state, it ranks 24th in per pupil spending, Colpitts said.

Some of the cost associated with the rise in spending worry district officials over the long run. District health care costs increased by 11 percent last year and are slated to go up by about 7.5 percent this year.

The district’s insurance company paid more for claims than it collected in premiums last year and, as a result, raised rates, according to Business Manager Cathy Fanjoy Coffey.

Not included in the budget are replacement roofs at several schools, paving that’s being defered for a year, and the purchase of one out of three new buses.

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