RUMFORD – More than a dozen residents turned out Tuesday night to learn about the proposed 2005-06 SAD 43 budget. The first vote on the budget will take place at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday.
Tuesday’s public hearing was also a time for Superintendent Jim Hodgkin to explain four other questions that will be decided at referendum in each of the four district towns on Tuesday, June 14. Residents will also validate the budget at the Tuesday referendum.
If approved as presented, the budget for the coming school year will be $13.9 million, about 2.2 percent less than the figure adopted last year.
Despite the lower amount, school taxes in three of the four member towns will rise because of a new funding formula adopted by the state. If approved Thursday, then validated on Tuesday, Mexico residents will see a substantial decline in school taxes, while Rumford, Roxbury and Byron will see a slight increase.
Increases in salaries, fuel and electricity costs, and health insurance premiums were offset by the elimination of 11 educational technician positions, restructuring of Virginia Elementary School that resulted in the loss of several positions, and the elimination of several other positions.
One of the articles on Tuesday’s ballot is a nonbinding question asking whether residents want to continue use of VES as an elementary school. The school board in January voted to end its use as an elementary school and send its 110 pupils to Rumford or Meroby elementary school in the fall. However, the school board agreed to put a nonbinding question on the ballot after some parents of VES pupils presented a petition asking that it remain an elementary school.
Hodgkin said that if an overwhelming majority of people vote to keep it as an elementary school, the board may reconsider its action. If that is done, then the $150,000 saved by changing the school’s use would have to be taken from elsewhere in the budget, he said.
Part of the budget ballot authorizes returning nearly $87,000 recovered from a theft by a former athletic director to the Student Activities Account for the purchase of sports team and band uniforms. The funds were taken from that account a couple of years ago.
Two other budget questions ask for approval to spend nearly $387,000 from the technology reserve account for laptop computers for high school juniors and seniors, and for $205,000 to be taken from the capital renovation account for reconfiguration of kindergarten through grade 5.
Also up for a vote is whether to continue the budget validation process during the annual adoption of a school budget. The process has been in place for three years. Right now, residents vote on the budget at a districtwide, town meeting-style session, then affirm or reject that amount at a referendum vote. If rejected, the process must begin all over again.
A second nonbinding question asks whether the district should pursue tentative plans to build a pool/health center addition onto the high school if it can be constructed and maintained at no cost to taxpayers.
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