OAKLAND – Regional School Unit 18 will tackle a budget crisis without its business manager — who has a new job in Portland.

Connie Packard, who has held the position for more than seven years, has taken a job with the Portland schools, working for Superintendent Jim Morse, the former superintendent for Oakland-based RSU 18.

Packard’s last day in RSU 18 will be Feb. 28.

RSU 18 Superintendent Gary Smith plans to make a proposal for filling her position at a school board meeting March 2. He declined to give details of his plan.

“Given the budget challenges we face, we’re trying to see if we can do things differently,” he said.

Smith said RSU 18 faces a $1.6 million reduction in state aid in “a budget year like no other.”

Packard, whose job as business manager in Portland is part time, will continue working in Oakland once a week for the next few months while the district develops its budget for the coming fiscal year. This year, it’s $33.4 million.

Packard said working with Portland’s nearly $90 million budget isn’t daunting.

“It’s the same principles,” she said.

She said she also knows that she can work with Morse, who held the Oakland-based district’s top job for 12 years before becoming superintendent in Portland in 2009.

“I’m familiar with his philosophy toward budgeting, and he’s familiar with mine,” Packard said.

Morse was on vacation Thursday and couldn’t be reached for comment.

Before working for RSU 18, Packard was finance director for the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Boothbay. From 1992 to 1997, she was the finance director for the city of Augusta, where she lives.

Packard, 60, said she will continue to live in Augusta and commute to Portland. Working part time, she said, will allow her to do some bookkeeping work from home and spend more time with her family. But saying goodbye to her co-workers won’t be easy, she said.