PARIS — The proposed School Administrative District 17 school budget is still in a holding pattern, said Superintendent Rick Colpitts.

“We are waiting in hopes the legislature will firm up the required local share mill rate and GPA for schools,”  Colpitts said Monday.

Additionally, there are still outstanding contracts that need to be settled before firm numbers can be developed for the proposed 2015-’16 budget.

“We are still engaged in negotiations with three bargaining groups,”  Colpitts said. Contracts for the  teachers, secretaries and Ed Tech 2 and 3 unions are still open.

Selectmen across the SAD 17 school district have been notified that the individual meetings scheduled for April with school officials to discuss the Fiscal 2014 budget have been canceled.

Instead, the boards will meet with school administrators as a group in the central office in May to hear the details of the proposed budget.

Earlier this month, Colpitts said, the 2015-’16 school budget would not be presented to the board of directors as planned but will rather be presented for adoption on May 18, the longest delay in memory, Colpitts said at the board April 6 meeting.

“We are in a holding pattern until the legislature take some action on the budget,” said Colpitts at that time. “If no action is taken by Augusta, by-mid May we will proceed using the governor’s proposed budget figures for GPA and the mill rate for the required local share.”

The superintendent has issued an updated budget schedule in which the Budget Committee approves the budget in early May, followed by a joint selectmen budget meeting on May 12, beginning at 7 p.m. in the central office at the school administration building at 232 Main St. in Paris.

If the budget is approved May 18, voters in the eight district towns will get the proposal June 4 for the district budget hearing, and for the June 9 district budget validation referendum.

ldixon@sunmediagroup.net

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