Eliminating and reducing funding for 11 positions at Westbrook schools is helping the School Committee formulate a budget that will not increase the tax rate.
The School Committee was scheduled to vote on the budget Wednesday, after American Journal deadline, before sending it to the City Council and then to the taxpayers for final approval.
The $32.8 million budget represents a 6.5 percent increase over this year’s $30.8 million budget. However, Superintendent Stan Sawyer said, the local share of $15.5 million is actually $5,000 less than this year’s budget.
According to City Administrator Jerre Bryant, the city’s tax rate this year was $15.43 per $1,000 of valuation, with $8.15 going toward the schools. Bryant said that rate wouldn’t change if the budget, as it stood Tuesday, was approved.
The increase in the total budget, Sawyer said, is due to interest and principal payments for the middle school being built on Stroudwater Street. There is still a $738,000 payment to be made by the taxpayers, but by cutting positions and other expenses, Sawyer and the School Committee have made up for it.
One or two employees will have to be laid off, Sawyer said. The majority of the positions will are being vacated by retiring employees and will not be filled. The positions include two third-grade teachers, a guidance counselor, two vocational school teachers, a bus driver and a custodian.
Sawyer said, regardless of the current economic climate, the school department would have cut positions anyway due to declining enrollment at the schools.
In total, 11 positions would be affected by budget cuts, creating a reduction equivalent of nine full-time salaries. Those cuts will save the schools $501,674. In addition, $474,431 in savings was found in other areas of the budget, including athletics and activities stipends and playground mulch. The majority of that savings, however, comes from the fact that health insurance rates did not go up, as was expected.
At a School Committee meeting last week, Sawyer commended the department and the board for keeping the budget down.
“I think we’ve done a remarkable job,” he said.
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