Calais city council wrestles with hole in school’s budget

It was a tense special meeting held by the Calais City Council on the evening of June 20. The council was in the unenviable position of having to come up with a fiscal year 2014 municipal budget that would keep the mill rate close to its current level of 23.3 while trying to support the Calais School Department budget. The school committee had voted to recommend to the council a school budget with a total local assessment of $1,951,000. The council approved for public hearing a total municipal budget of $8,324,348 with $1,309,670 allocated as local assessment amount for the school budget, leaving a "hole" of over $600,000 in the school's budget. The city would be raising about $144,000 more than last year for the school.
At a school committee meeting held on June 4, AOS #77 Superintendent Jim Underwood explained that for a number of years the City of Calais has contributed less than the local minimum share to the school budget, as allowed by a waiver given by the state. As a result, he explained, the school budget has suffered to the point of now being over "a cliff." At the June 20 meeting, council President Marianne Moore noted that the city will be working over the next three years to raise the level of its contribution to the local minimum. A bill sponsored by Rep. Joyce Maker was signed into law on May 30 that will ensure that local districts fully fund their local educational commitments. The bill phases out the proportional share reduction over a three‑year period starting in fiscal year 2014‑2015.
No one appeared happy with the compromise reached with the amount to be raised by local assessment for the school budget. Councillors were reluctant to make a motion, and when the motions were made and seconded, the votes were split evenly three to three, with council President Moore casting her vote to break the ties.
School committee members and staff expressed their concerns about the $600,000 difference between the two school figures and what it would mean for both staffing and programming. Councillor Chris Bernardini asked, "How do we fill the hole in the school budget?"
School board member Kathleen Caso noted that she had heard that the school had recently lost five tuition students, each of whom pays $8,200 to the school, to other schools for the coming year because of the "commotion" in Calais about the budget. In response to a question by Councillor Billy Howard about the effect the smaller school budget would have on the school system, Ray Freve, a consultant to the school, told the council, "There is not $609,000 in the budget that can be reduced." The biggest cost, he said, is labor, but reducing staff would end up reducing programs. "The minute you do programs you lose tuition students." He added, "I don't have any doubts that it's going to do away with programs."
Howard explained that he had gone to almost every third house in Calais to talk with residents about the budget. "The majority are fixed income. With everything going up, we cannot keep raising taxes. We've got to draw the line somewhere."
Councillors had asked City Manager Diane Barnes to come up with some cost‑saving scenarios for the municipal budget side. She explained, "The only areas left are personnel," many of whom are under union contracts that would have to be negotiated. "There are issues when trying to lay‑off union personnel," she added.
The Calais municipal budget as proposed would raise the mill rate by 1.6 points to about 24.9, although Barnes cautioned that the mill rate could not be set until the budget was approved and valuations determined. The other factor in the final budget is the level of state revenue sharing, which was still being determined at the legislative level. The Calais budget has the level of state revenue sharing down by $102,000 from last year's budget, for a total of $228,000. Barnes remarked that since 2008 the city's side of revenue sharing has dropped from $400,000. "We have kept the municipal side of the budget flat."
+The public will have an opportunity to weigh in on the budgets at the Tuesday, July 9, school budget validation referendum and at the Tuesday, July 16, public hearing on the budget at 6 p.m.