11/19/09

School Board meeting to address expected curtailment in state subsidy

The School Board will meet on Monday, Nov. 23, at 7:45 a.m. in the William H. Jordan Conference Room at Town Hall to begin to plan for what could be more than a $590,000 reduction in state aid for the current fiscal year.

Since the end of the last school year, state Education Commissioner Susan Gendron has apprised superintendents of budget-reduction targets for both the current and next fiscal year. A letter from Gendron on Nov. 18 alerted superintendents to a $38.1 million statewide curtailment in general purpose aid to education, expected to be announced by Gov. John Baldacci on Friday, Nov. 20.

The letter from Gendron says the reduction for individual school units will be posted on the Department of Education website by mid-afternoon Nov. 20.

Though local reductions have yet to be announced, Cape Elizabeth officials are expecting a drop of more than $590,000, based on the curtailment made by the governor last year. "There is a simple calculation that will help you estimate the impact," wrote Gendron in a letter to superintendents Nov. 3. "Multiply the subsidy reduction for your SAU in the FY 09 supplemental budget by 1.4 because the $38 million target is 1.4 times the $27 million statewide reduction in FY 09."

Cape Elizabeth's reduction in fiscal 2009 was $421,572, 14-percent of the $3 million state subsidy granted that year.

If this year's reduction is $590,200 as expected, it will mean a 31.5 percent cut in Cape Elizabeth's 2010 allocation of nearly $1.9 million. Gendron's letter of Nov. 18, however, says this year's reductions are being calculated using the same funding formula used for distribution of subsidy for the current year.

Officials will have a better idea of the curtailment's impact on Cape Elizabeth once the breakdown for local school systems is published.

Baldacci's order for a curtailment will affect only the current fiscal year, and not include a $36 million statewide reduction in state aid projected for fiscal 2011. State Department of Education letters indicate that the amount of state aid approved for the biennial budget, combined with the $36 million reduction target, will mean statewide subsidies of $910 million, $92 million less than the original statewide appropriation of $1.002 billion for fiscal 2010.

At the School Board's meeting Nov. 3, Superintendent Alan Hawkins announced that the board would meet the morning of Nov. 23 to "brainstorm" ways to deal with the likely loss of state subsidy for the current fiscal year.

The School Department froze spending for non-salary budget items in late September.

"However, the part that I think is most difficult to work with is to begin to look at the reductions for fiscal year 2011," Hawkins said.

Hawkins said he plans to present at the Nov. 23 meeting what the School Department has for unexpended balances, and what some of the debt, including legal debt, Cape schools are facing. "Then our next step would be to take a look at fiscal year 2011," Hawkins said.

Previous stories:

Schools freeze spending as officials brace for more cuts in state subsidy (10/01/09)