Less than two dozen people attended a public hearing on the proposed Regional School Unit 1 budget, most of them employees of the district. There were no questions from the public on the budget. (Nathan Strout / The Times Record)
BATH — While the $33.7 million draft budget for Regional School Unit 1 represents a 12 percent increase over the current year, school district officials say they’ll only need a 2 percent local tax increase to pay for it.
The main reason for that mismatch is the fact that nearly two-thirds of the 12 percent increase in the budget is due to the construction of a new building to house the high school and Bath Regional Career Technical Center. While the district is on the hook for about $7.9 million of that $74.6 million project, the state will end up paying for more than 90 percent of the costs. The district has also been fundraising to offset the local costs of the new building, decreasing the amount that will have to be paid for by local taxpayers.
Without the new high school building, the budget would only increase by $1.3 million, 4.4 percent increase. Local taxpayers will be on the hook for less than half of the increase. A big reason why that’s the case is that the state subsidy for the district is increasing from $10.1 million to nearly $10.9 million.
In total then, local revenue will have to increase by 2 percent, or $365,309, to cover the district’s expenses.
The tax increase will be applied differently in the four communities that make up Regional School Unit 1 — Arrowsic, Bath, Phippsburg and Woolwich. The amount of the increase each community is responsible for varies according to the number of students each town has enrolled year to year, among other factors.
In Arrowsic, taxes will decrease by 10.3 percent. For a property valued at $200,000, that would mean a savings of about $138.52 on their property taxes. Bath, meanwhile, would see an increase of 2.54 percent, resulting in an increase on their tax bill of about $31.28 on a $200,000 property. Phippsburg’s tax burden would be essentially unchanged, with a decrease of .03 percent and savings of $1.54 on the same property value. Woolwich, the community that has seen the largest increase in students enrolled in the district, would also see its taxes increase by the most. Woolwich financial obligation would increase by 3.7 percent. For a $200,000 property, that would be an increased payment of $51.42.
Monday marked the first public hearing on the proposed budget, but it was sparsely attended with an audience of mostly school district employees. School Board Chairman Stephen August speculated that the low attendance was due to the fact that the date for the first public hearing was not advertised clearly enough on the district’s website. There will be a second public hearing at the next school board meeting on April 22.
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