In what she’s calling a “largely maintenance budget,” Meredith Nadeau, superintendent of schools in Cape Elizabeth, unveiled a nearly $24.5 million spending package for the new fiscal year last week that would increase taxes by 68 cents per $1,000 of valuation.
The biggest impacts to the budget, according to Nadeau, include a significant loss in state funding, currently pegged at more than $923,000, and an anticipated 8 percent increase in health insurance costs and a combined salary increase for all school employees of $446,269.
In making her last annual budget presentation to the School Board on March 1, Nadeau said the loss in state aid is mostly determined by Cape’s rising property values and declining school enrollment. In fact, Nadeau is anticipating a reduction of about 100 students by 2025.
Overall, Nadeau said, the proposed budget represents “strong support for co-curricular and extracurricular activities,” along with “additional support for our popular after-school robotics program and an increase for equipment replacement.”
The School Board is set to begin its fiscal year 2016-2017 budget deliberations during a workshop scheduled for Tuesday, March 14, but voters will get the final say on the school spending package during a referendum planned for mid-June.
This week, Elizabeth Scifres, the School Board chairwoman, agreed with Nadeau and said the proposed budget is “for the most part a maintenance budget.”
But, she said, it also “maintains appropriate class sizes, increases supports for interventions, expands time and frequency for foreign language in our elementary school, increases funds for teacher professional development and expands technology and tech integration district-wide.”
Scifres added that it’s also “difficult to develop a budget that provides high-quality education to all students when there is such a deep cut in revenues,” calling the anticipated reduction in state aid a “a drastic cut.”
Molly MacAuslan, chairwoman of the Cape Elizabeth Town Council, is also concerned about the loss of state aid and called it “discouraging,” particularly because the reduction is close to 30 percent.
However, she’s also “optimistic that the School Board and the council will work together to ensure the best result possible for the schools, for our community, and for the taxpayers.”
The full school budget workshop schedule can be found on the School Department’s website, at www.cape.k12.me.us, under the School Board link.
Meanwhile, Town Manager Mike McGovern is scheduled to make a presentation on the proposed new $12.3 million municipal budget to the Town Council on Monday, March 14.
This would increase spending by more than $443,600 and lead to a 10-cent increase in taxes per $1,000 of valuation, for a total combined increase, between the municipal and school budgets, of 78 cents, if the combined budget is approved as proposed.
Among the new items included in the municipal budget, according to McGovern, are anticipated interest costs for the proposed $1.4 million recycling center bond, which residents will vote on in June, and the costs for operating the Community Services Department.
Responsibility for Community Services will move from the School Department to the town beginning July 1. And while the budget for that department has not yet been prepared McGovern has added $1.8 million for now, as well as factored in the cost of additional senior services and programming.
Other new expenses include $48,000 for repairs at Fort Williams Park, $30,000 to assist with staffing needs at the Rescue Department and additional custodial costs for maintaining the newly renovated Thomas Memorial Library.
A public hearing on the combined municipal and school budget will be held on May 9, and the council will hold a final budget vote on May 23.
Kate Gardner from Sun Media Wire contributed to this story.
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