On Wednesday, January 3, 2024 the Town Council and School Board met for a joint workshop to provide a preliminary overview of the budget season.  Town Council Chair Timothy Reiniger and School Board Chair Elizabeth Scifres co-chaired the workshop, which began with an update from the School Building Advisory Committee (SBAC).

Councilor Penny Joran, co-chair of the SBAC and member of the finance subcommittee, reviewed that in addition to receiving reports on what possible alternative funding sources might be, the group has started work on a comprehensive capital improvement plan.  As the SBAC begins looking at funding options and strategies for a solution to put in place, drawing on municipal policies around debt and bonds, “We will be able to look at it from a more comprehensive perspective and create models to demonstrate what the impact would be from a bond perspective,” Jordan said.  Together, with the assistance from the Town’s finance advisor, Town Manager Matthew Sturgis, and Finance Director Kristie Bradbury, “In the end, we will have a full view of what the financial impact from a capital perspective is from a municipal and a school perspective for the next 10 to 15 years,” she said.

Cindy Voltz, SBAC co-chair and member of the communications subcommittee, reviewed the ongoing communication efforts which include: monthly press releases, public forums, and a website.  Three educational visioning workshops conducted by Harriman have been completed and three educational programming documents for each school have been provided by Superintendent Christopher Record.  Voltz explained that all this information will be used to develop seven preliminary design options by Harriman.  Financial analysis around these seven options will also be developed.  The options will be refined to three before presenting them at a public forum in April.

Lisa Sawin of Harriman provided an update presentation and added that through the work and data collected thus far, options range from repairs, to renovations, and new schools with, “The goal being to provide a variety of options that address different levels of needs and goals.”  Priorities revealed through the various data collection efforts include: security improvements, healthy buildings, cafeteria improvements, right-sizing, functional needs, gathering and collaboration hubs, agile and flexible classrooms, layout modifications, and outdoor learning in play. 

The seven options will look to incorporate these priorities.  The next public forum on February 1, 2024 will present the seven options and collect community feedback on those options.   From there, the final three, “Which might be a combination of these seven,” will be presented at the April 4 public forum, “With costs,” Sawin explained.  Ultimately, the options will be narrowed to one “supported option,” determined by community input in order to have a successful referendum outcome.

Following the Harriman presentation, Reiniger and Scifres reviewed the roles and responsibilities of both the Town Council and School Board in order to provide the community with greater understanding ahead of the budget season.  The flow chart below demonstrates that the two bodies have separate functions.  

In addition, referring to a legal memo from Drummond Woods dated May 16, 2018, Reiniger said that there were two items that caught his attention.  The first was that, “The Town Council has no statutory duties or authority with respect to public education, with the sole exception in its capacity as a municipal legislative body, of approving the total amount of the school budget to be submitted to the voters in a budget validation referendum.”  Secondly, “The Maine Supreme Judicial Court has made it clear that municipal school boards are ‘agents of the state and are legally distinguished from municipalities’ --  this concept of the School Board being an agent of the state versus the Town Council being agent of the town, to me, is fascinating,” Reiniger added.

Next, Town Council Finance Chair Timothy Thompson explained that on the town side, the Town Manager has indicated that the departments are looking to land their budgets at somewhere around the inflation rate or the consumer price index which is approximately 3.1 – 3.2%.  “With all the different things that we’re going to be dealing with and asking our taxpayers to share the burden on, I think it’s going to be a year where we should try to approach our budgets as carefully as possible,” Thompson said.   “We will keep that work moving forward with the school and come up with a plan that the taxpayers will hopefully be happy with,” he added.

Superintendent Record said that his leadership team has been working on their budgets since October and will be presenting it to the board on January 23.  As usual, the unknowns for this time of year are the amount of revenue coming from state aid and the extent of health insurance increase.  “We are aware of the situation in town and where we are and where we hope to be.  So, we’re taking it very seriously, as we do every year,” Record said.  

Sturgis said that municipal health insurance costs were announced over the summer and will be approximately 7% this year.  Additionally, investment returns have been very strong.  “I want to thank Marcie Weeks and Kristie Bradbury, Business Manager for the school department and Finance Director for the town respectively.  They’ve really maximized what we’ve received for return on our investments with our savings accounts,” Sturgis said.