MEXICO — Region 9 School of Applied Technology’s proposed budget for 2021-22 represents a decrease of $2,314 to this year’s budget, according to school Director Brenda Gammon.

At a budget hearing last Thursday, Gammon provided reasons for why the proposed $2.3 million budget is less than current spending.

Those reasons include removal of the school’s cooperative education program, a change made because all three of its partner high schools — Mountain Valley High School in Rumford, Dirigo High School in Dixfield and Telstar High School in Bethel — “have similar programs as to our cooperative education (program),” according to Gammon.

The school is also looking to remove its employability skills program, due to low enrollments for the past three years, she said.

Other factors for the budget decrease are a bus loan that has been paid off and a lower interest rate on its 2007 building addition and renovation project loan, according to Gammon.

Some increases impacting the overall 2021-22 budget are “agreed upon salaries and associated taxes and insurance coverage costs,” she said.

The technical school enrolls students from Rumford, Mexico, Roxbury, Hanover, Bethel, Newry, Woodstock, Greenwood, Dixfield, Canton, Carthage, Peru, Andover, Byron, Gilead and Upton.

The Region 9 board of directors is scheduled to vote Wednesday on the proposed budget. The meeting is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. at the school on 377 River Road in Mexico, with a budget vote for residents of its 16 towns planned for 6 p.m. on May 5.

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