Some local school departments are freezing spending in certain areas in anticipation of reductions in state aid.

Westbrook Superintendent Stan Sawyer said this week he was looking closely at vacant positions and filling them only if absolutely necessary. He said he was also looking at cutting back on field trips and athletic events, which require buses to travel long distances, as another way to save money.

The steps in Westbrook are similar to measures other school districts in southern Maine are being forced to consider after Gov. John Baldacci last week told state agencies to come up with ways to cut $150 million from current state spending as state revenues fell further behind projections. Local school officials said this week the state could cut $54 million from general purpose aid to education.

“The schools should be worried,” said state Sen. Joe Brannigan, D-Cumberland County, a member of the State and Local Government Committee. “It’s a very serious situation and the picture’s probably going to get worse before it gets better.”

The Department of Education was expected to make a final decision and submit a letter to the governor detailing cuts by Thursday, said spokesman David Connerty-Marin.

“Those curtailments will come almost exclusively from general purpose aid,” Connerty-Marin said about aid that is given to schools throughout the state to supplement their school budgets. “How this will affect each school district overall is not clear.”

Westbrook’s reaction was similar to the response of superintendents in Cape Elizabeth and Scarborough, where superintendents this week said they were freezing spending in certain areas of the budget.

“I’m very concerned about what is coming out of the Department of Education in terms of curtailment,” said Sawyer.

Cape Elizabeth Superintendent Alan Hawkins said schools there could lose its June 2009 payment of about $200,000 in general purpose aid if the Department of Education decides to make a $54 million cut. Cape Elizabeth receives a little more than $3 million in general purpose aid, according to Hawkins.

“It makes it very difficult,” he said. “At this point, I have frozen all budgets. Luckily it’s early in the school year so that I have very clear control as to what we are spending until we know what all of this means.”

However, how the state decided to cut general purpose aid could determine how much each district loses. If the Department of Education decides to cut a percentage of everyone’s aid, Sawyer said, “big receivers like Westbrook could lose more.”

Of Westbrook’s $30 million budget, $12.5 million is supposed to come from general purpose aid. Gorham is slated to receive $16 million in state education subsidy in the current budget, according to School Board member Jim Hager. Buxton is a part of School Administrative District 6, which expects to receive $20 million in general purpose aid this year, according to Rick Matthews, assistant superintendent of finance and operations.

Hager and Matthews said Gorham and SAD 6 were taking a wait-and-see approach this week.

“We’re just going with our original plan – week-by-week, day-by-day,” said Hager, adding that the current fiscal situation might require some out-of-the-box thinking.

“We’re just keeping at eye on things,” said Matthews, who added the district is keeping a close tab on fuel costs.

Matthews said timing of a subsidy cut would be important. If a cut came next June, he said it could be less of a problem. But “any curtailment would hurt,” he said.

Reporter Al Edwards also contributed to this story.