More staff cuts are possible again this year as Gorham Superintendent Ted Sharp was set to roll out his proposed budget Wednesday. The presentation in a special Gorham School Committee meeting at 7 p.m. came after the American Journal deadline.
Sharp didn’t have details to release prior to the meeting, and said he planned to continue work on the budget right up to the meeting. Sharp said his proposed budget would be changing when “definitive” numbers from the state and federal governments became available.
Matt Robinson, chairman of the Gorham Town Council, said this week he doesn’t want a school or municipal budget that increases taxes. Robinson has advocated renegotiating union contracts to save jobs.
“My goal is not to let anybody go,” Robinson said.
School Committee Chairman Dennis Libby told town councilors last week that unions had been contacted. Libby said the schools were facing staff reductions, which wouldn’t be eliminated by a freeze on salary increases.
Libby said the school department has also been looking at “pay to play” in athletics. “We’re leaving no stone unturned,” Libby said.
Last year, several full-time school jobs were cut, including three top posts, as a proposed $30.3 million school budget was trimmed by $1 million.
Sharp said Commissioner of Education Sue Gendron last week informed superintendents that firm figures for the state’s general purpose aid and stimulus funds wouldn’t be available until the end of March.
“Until those figures are available, focusing on what is obviously a preliminary, or draft No. 1 of the … budget we know is veneer at best and a fool’s errand at worst…,” Sharp said in an e-mail.
The School Committee will discuss Sharp’s proposed budget in an all-day workshop at 8 a.m, on Saturday, March 21, in the superintendent’s conference room at the Gorham Municipal Center, 75 South St.
School Committee member Jim Hager, chairman of the school finance committee, said Wednesday he’s dismayed by both the economy and the lack of firm numbers from Augusta to school districts during budget preparations.
“I’m disappointed all around,” Hager said.
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