LEWISTON — School budget deliberations will continue next Wednesday with a revised plan to help the district avoid a financial cliff in the coming years.
Superintendent Jake Langlais presented a proposal to the School Committee on Wednesday night to use $2.8 million in COVID relief funds and $5.9 million in carryover money to reduce the local tax increase. He said this would be enough money to maintain expenses for two years.
But members worried that once relief funds run out, recurring expenses would jack up the budget and the tax rate in fiscal year 2024.
On a suggestion by member Ron Potvin, the committee directed Langlais to return $1 million to $1.5 million to the fund balance to avoid reducing it to zero.
Members also asked the superintendent to return to the general fund $700,000 of the $2.8 million he reallocated to relief funds. About half of the relief allocations are recurring expenses.
“Using relief funds is a short-term solution,” Langlais said Wednesday night, “but it is a solution.”
His plan would have reduced the local tax impact on the proposed $95.72 million budget from $1.99 per $1,000 of property value to 61 cents.
Various committee members said they would support a tax-rate increase of 80 cents to $1.25.
Not all supported taking a higher increase to voters.
“Our community has been hit hard in the last year,” Chairwoman Megan Parks said.
She said people have been evicted because they lost their jobs during the pandemic and can’t pay their rent. She suggested the economy might be better in two years and the cliff could be avoided by raising taxes at that time.
The committee directed Langlais to revise his budget to reflect the changes to the fund balance and the general fund and to come back with how that would affect the tax rate.
The fund balance is money in the budget that is not spent and is carried over. Lewiston’s balance is typically $1.25 million. This year it’s much greater because of the number of positions that remained vacant.
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