Gov. Paul LePage’s executive order on Dec. 27 to reduce state spending will have a $138,000 impact locally.

According to information released by the state Department of Education, the $5.2 million in state aid to Regional School Unit 5, which serves Freeport, Pownal and Durham, will be reduced by slightly more than $138,000. The cut is a small percentage of the $24.9 million 2012-2013 school budget passed by voters in June.

LePage ordered $35.5 million cut in spending in an effort to balance the state’s fiscal year 2013 budget. The cuts enacted by LePage include a total of $12.58 million in reductions to general purpose aid to state schools. The reductions were made necessary by a Maine law that requires the state produce a balanced budget by the end of each fiscal year, which is June 30.

“With the fiscal year at its midpoint, if we were not to address this now it would become increasingly challenging to achieve the reductions required to balance the budget,” said Maine Department of Education Commissioner Stephen Bowen. “The curtailment order will help schools make plans.”

RSU 5 Superintendent Shannon Welsh said it would be tough to come up with ways to cut the budget without having too deep of an impact on students.

“At this point in the year, the only discretionary funds we have available to us is money that would be spent for books, supplies, curriculum materials, field trips, events like that,” she said. “And we’re going to need to take a close look at the budget to see what’s not been spent and where we can freeze spending. It’s unfortunate because it does impact the kids in the classroom, but when the revenues aren’t coming in, we can’t spend money we don’t have.”

Nelson Larkins, the chairman of the RSU 5 board, said that Welsh warned the directors earlier last month that a cut was coming from the state.

“The administration had already talked to the board (about LePage’s plan to make cuts),” he said.

Larkins had mixed feelings about the cut.

“The good part is it’s a very small percentage of the overall budget,” he said. “The bad part is it’s a very real $138,000 (that is being lost) and we have no way of making that up.”

Larkins said he expects that the board will hear more about the cuts and the ways that the district will try and make up for the reduction in state money at its next meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 9. He said that the school administration would go to the individual school principals to identify ways to save money. He said that for the most part, he expected the savings to be found in a series of small cuts, rather than larger ones that could directly impact students.

Welsh said she would provide the board with a list of proposed reductions at the Jan. 9 meeting.

Some, she said, “will be conservation efforts in heating and lights, reduced copying, those type of cutbacks that won’t impact people and limit the impact to the classroom.”

Bowen said the governor’s order was a temporary one, and the state Legislature is expected to enact a supplemental budget in January to make reductions to the state budget to meet the state law requiring a balanced budget.

Bowen said schools would not see an immediate reduction in their state aid checks at this time, but he said schools need to begin planning, as the amount of state aid they will be receiving will be lower than initially planned.

“I know this is a challenge for school districts already working hard to direct limited resources to student learning,” Bowen said.