BRUNSWICK — The Brunswick School Department approved a three-year contract for Brunswick teachers as well as the retirement of Coffin School Principal John Paige after an executive session meeting Wednesday night.
Jeff Hipsher, a teacher at Brunswick High School and Brunswick Education Association representative, said that the teachers union is “certainly glad to have a longterm contract in place” after Wednesday’s meeting.
The contract specifies the structure for teacher raises over those three years and also places nurses on the faculty salary scale.
After year one, employees on that pay scale will receive a 3.57 percent raise; after year two, a 3.99 percent raise with 85 percent of health insurance costs paid by the school department; and after year three, a 2.9 percent increase with the same split of health insurance costs.
After a budget workshop to further discuss part of the department’s plan to work toward closing a nearly $3 million budget gap, Superintendent Paul Perzanoski said that the new contract will help to keep the district competitive against others in the area.
The new contract, approved by an 8-0 vote with District 3 School Board member Matt Corey absent, also preserves the option for teachers to retire and be rehired, a choice a teacher could make to exchange seniority in the district for the ability to maximize retirement benefits.
Debt relief
Prior to Wednesday’s regular meeting, the School Board put together more pieces of the financial puzzle designed to close a budget gap brought on by losses in state and federal revenue.
Part of that puzzle is a break from the town on loans owed for rehabilitating the former Hawthorne School, where the school department’s current administrative offices are housed.
School district business manager Jim Oikle said that the town made the offer to postpone payments on the outstanding $300,000 debt until next year, though details about whether interest would also be given a holiday had not been worked out, Oikle said.
For the short term, Oikle said, that relieved the school department of an expected payment of around $70,000 toward that loan.
In total, the school department will enter the fiscal year carrying around $22.6 million in principal debt, most of which is owed on the construction of Harriet Beecher Stowe School.
According to information Oikle compiled for Wednesday’s meeting, the department expects to completely pay off construction debt for Brunswick High School in November 2013.
No free lunch
With new U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines expected to take effect next year, food services director Scott Smith said the cost of food will likely rise.
In response, Smith told the board Wednesday night that he recommends increases in school lunch prices.
At the junior high and high school, that would mean lunch prices increasing 25 cents, from $2.50 to $2.75, while elementary school lunch prices would increase five cents to keep in line with USDA pricing guidelines Smith said were established last year.
That increase, Smith said, will help to keep the food services department’s local fund allocation equal with last year, at $86,000.
In total, the budget proposed for food services comes in at $970,136.
Federal financing
On Wednesday, the board heard reports on the department’s planned spending for food services, adult education, federal funding sources under Title I and II, and a state grant to help fund special education.
For that special education money, school officials hope that changes to the way the money is spent can help make up for rising special education costs.
In total, the school department budgets around $275,000 in tuition costs to send students to programs such as Achieve and the Mental Health Collaborative School, according to Student Services Director Paul Austin.
Austin said he hopes to save nearly $70,000 to cover program cost increases by changing the way the federal grant money is spent.
Currently, Oikle said, state government covers required retirement contributions for school department employees. When the department uses federal money to pay salaries, Oikle said, the state does not contribute, meaning that grant money has to be spent to cover a 26 percent contribution to the state retirement system.
Timeline
Wednesday marked the penultimate program-oriented budget forum in the school department’s 2012-13 budget schedule.
The next meeting will take place at 6 p.m. April 25 in the town council chambers at Brunswick Station and will cover mostly spending for school administration.
Following that meeting, the School Board will prepare to bring a budget to the Town Council at a May 3 meeting, with a final budget to be crafted by the end of May.
A town-wide referendum on the school budget will take place June 12.
As part of the upcoming budget process, finance committee chairman Rich Ellis said Wednesday that he will explore crafting general three- year and five- year spending plans to help the school department better project long-range goals for its budgeting.
Calendar
In other business Wednesday night, the School Board approved a 2012-13 academic year calendar that accommodates a request by Town Clerk Fran Smith to close the junior high school on Nov. 6 for use as a polling place for an election that will include presidential, congressional, legislative and local contests, as well as a state referendum on same-sex marriage.
“There’s a little something for everyone this year,” Smith joked.
dfishell@timesrecord.com
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