PHIPPSBURG

School reconfiguration or consolidation, a reduction in sports programming and subcontracting additional services are among options the Regional School Unit 1 board of directors will consider as they consider budget cuts for next year that could approach $1 million.

At a school board meeting on Monday, board chairman Tim Harkins said those topics — as well as “doing a schoolby school analysis of dollars we’re spending per student per school” — are under consideration.

“There are no sacred cows,” Harkins said, updating the full school board on the discussions of its Finance Committee.

In December, RSU 1 Superintendent Patrick Manuel announced that the district faced a potential $1 million budget gap resulting from reduced revenues, a reduction in state aid to education, the end of the federal jobs bill and increased costs of health insurance, fuel and heating oil, among other factors.

“We’ve been talking about this for several years, that this situation was coming,” board member Chet Garrison, who represents District 4, said on Monday. “We’ve been saying it over and over again … everything is on the table.”

Harkins said other “crazy ideas” also surfaced, including delaying the opening of the new Woolwich Central School, which is slated for September 2012, but Harkins added that he didn’t think that would happen.

Harkins is scheduled to hold an informal presentation on the budget at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Bath Area Family YMCA.