GORHAM–Twenty jobs would be eliminated in the latest version of Gorham’s preliminary school budget.
A $30.3 million spending plan proposed by Superintendent Ted Sharp is up $694,000, representing a 2.34 percent increase above last year’s $29.6 million. But, Gorham’s general purpose aid from the state is now figured to decrease from $16.9 million last year to $16.2 million, a hefty $741,000 drop.
Sharp said numbers in his proposed budget could change as the governor and Legislature address the deficit in the state’s revenue. Teachers and other personnel now likely to lose jobs in Gorham had not been named this week.
“We will not notify people until we have firm subsidy numbers from the state,” Sharp said Tuesday.
Sharp’s budget, as of Feb. 25, projects 12 actual layoffs in Gorham including 5.6 teachers, four educational technicians and 2.4 other non-teaching positions.
Budget reductions had targeted 10. 6 teaching positions, but that number was reduced by three retirements and two teachers with one-year leaves of absence. Seven ed tech positions were to be cut, but three have resigned, further reducing the number of layoffs.
The number of job reductions changed to 20 the day after Sharp handed School Committee members his proposed budget on Feb. 24. The budget initially called for a reduction of 22 positions, equaling more than $1 million in cost cuts.
The 20 job losses follows 38 job cuts in the past two Gorham school budgets.
“The state is killing us with their state aid to education,” Mike Phinney, chairman of the Gorham Town Council, said Tuesday.
The School Committee will review Sharp’s proposed budget in an all day workshop on Saturday, March 13, in the School Department at the Gorham Municipal Center, 75 South St.
Dennis Libby, chairman of the School Committee, Tuesday described the budget as a work in progress.
“It’s getting harder and harder when you’re working with projected numbers,” Libby said. “It’s frustrating.”
Sharp’s proposal would raise the school’s share of the property tax rate from $10.12 to $10.43, representing an increase of 31 cents per $1,000 of valuation to pay for the local share of education. The increase would raise the taxes on a home valued at $200,000 by $62.
Phinney said the Town Council, which won’t likely see the school budget until May, is “very aware” of the economic climate.
“We’re going to try hard as we can to keep the tax rate as low as we can,” Phinney said. “The Town Council has said we’d like to keep a flat budget.”.
Sharp told the School Committee that his proposed budget reflects a 10 percent reduction in discretionary accounts, representing a savings of $319,000.
The proposed budget includes the first two interest payments of $920,000 for the new elementary school under construction. The new school was approved by voters in 2008 and is to open in 2011.
On the plus side, Gorham expects to receive $761,000 in stimulus funds, up $225,476 from last year’s $535,572.
Sharp submitted two alternative budgets for the School Committee to review. One, an early version developed in November with starting numbers and didn’t include any job losses, depicts where the budget process began. It would have represented a 21.6 percent increase in the tax rate.
An alternative budget representing close to a zero increase in the tax rate would have cut 28 jobs.
“The administrative team decided they would not recommend that proposal because it had a significant negative impact on programs and services,” Hollis Cobb, finance director for Gorham’s School Department, said this week.
The school budget will require approval from the School Committee, Town Council and Gorham voters in a town referendum in June.
Phinney said the Town Council would receive the municipal side of the budget from Town Manager David Cole on Tuesday, April 6.
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