RUMFORD — Regional School Unit 10 officials said they are working to pare a proposed 15.89% budget increase to 8% for 2025-26.

Deb Alden, superintendent of Regional School Unit 10 in Rumford Submitted photo

“We know that this budget won’t pass (as is) so we’ve already started the reduction page,” Superintendent Deb Alden said at the board of directors meeting March 10 at Mountain Valley High School.

This year’s budget is around $37 million.

The district includes Buckfield, Hanover, Hartford, Mexico, Roxbury, Rumford and Sumner.

Alden said the new target for the next budget is an 8% increase, which would mean cutting $1.35 million from the proposed budget.

“Getting close to that 8%, it’s still a big increase,” Chad Culleton of Hartford, vice chairman of the school board, said. “Most people get a 3% increase in their pay and their value of their house has gone up, but that doesn’t mean any extra money is coming in. But I think $1.35 million to get there is going to be tough.”

Alden said they’ve already made $615,700 in cuts since March 6. She discussed those items.

“For all the vacancies we know now, we’ve gone from full family (insurance coverage) to 50% of that amount. By doing that, that’s a reduction of $190,000,” she said.

Alden said a proposal for an academic dean at $83,600 was cut; that will be done another year.

The district also is putting off needed bleachers for the Mountain Valley High School gym, a cost of $270,000, and will use reclaimed material instead of spending $50,000 for paving the lot for the Mountain Valley bus garage.

The district is also holding off spending $22,000 for a flooring project at the high school in Rumford.

Items driving an increase are: negotiated salaries; medical insurance up 16%; building insurance; out-of-district placements and seed costs (Medicaid); transportation to out-of-district and homeless youth.

At this time of year, Alden said the administrative team is “working on trying to find things. It might be a project that we want to do and we find out we can do it a different way to make it cheaper. We’re working on all of those things.”

That work could continue right up until the board has to make its final budget vote May 5.

Alden said it’s unfortunate that the first time the board rolls out the proposed budget that “people take it as that is where it’s at. It’s not.”

She said she starts the budget process with the administrators and directors, asking them “what they think we really need based on where we’re going, what our goals are, the state of the facilities, things that we found are problems, numbers in enrollment, and we put together a budget. We don’t even know where it’s going to come out.”

Alden, putting together her ninth budget with RSU 10, said she believes, “In order to have progress, forward movement, we always have to scrutinize the things we have and the things we need. We might have something that we’re not getting a great bang for our buck, but something we think we should add is even more important. If you don’t have those critical thinking times, I don’t think you ever move forward.”

She noted that a lot of this work is discussed during school board meetings, so she encourages the public to attend to witness the process “and really get a grasp on some of the decisions that we have to make.”

“One of the problems, and all of the superintendents are talking about this, is a valuation that comes from the state to the town’s properties,” Alden said. “And that valuation has a lot to do with what the towns have to pay. And that has absolutely nothing to do with us. Obviously, it impacts the budget and it impacts what the towns have to pay, their share of the budget, but there’s no controlling it on our part.”

The annual budget meeting is May 28, at a site to be determined, with the districtwide budget vote at polls in the seven towns June 3.