Old Orchard Beach residents will vote June 14 on a school budget that significantly reduces the district’s staff.
The $13.4 million 2016-17 budget is 5.5 percent higher than the current budget. During a regional budget meeting last week, residents added $75,000 to the $13.3 million budget approved by the school board.
Superintendent Lloyd Crocker says the budget had to include “significant” staff cuts to bring the budget in with the 3 percent increase suggested by the school board. The board ultimately added $71,000 in additional funding to bring the increase to 5 percent in order to pay down the negative fund balance. Crocker said he had to cut $1.2 million in staffing costs out of the $13 million budget to get to the 3 percent initially suggested by the board.
“We’re really looking down the road to the next four or five years and seeing how we could make this district sustainable and solvent,” he said. “We had to make drastic cuts this year to get to that point.”
The budget calls for the elimination of two full-time teachers, two part-time teachers and a part-time educational technician at the Loranger and Jameson schools, as well as a part-time art teacher and full-time computer teacher from the high school.
Other staff changes include the Loranger principal taking the duties of IT director and the combining of the superintendent and high school principal positions. The high school athletic director position will be combined with a teaching position and the middle school athletic director position will be an added stipend position for a staff member. The district operations director and a custodial position will be eliminated.
Crocker said the changes will result in 12 to 14 people losing their jobs. He said five employees accepted a retirement incentive.
“Even though we’ve had to go deep with cuts, we’ve done that extremely thoughtfully,” Crocker said. “We recognize that cutting staff is personal and emotional for the people being cut. We’ve planned for how to absorb the positions. We feel the negative impact has been minimized to the best of our ability.”
The school budget, combined with the municipal budget, will increase the property tax rate by 56 cents. That increase will be offset by an increase in the state homestead exemption and raises annual taxes on a $200,000 home by about $46.
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