Advocating state reform for school funding, Gorham Superintendent Ted Sharp has handed the School Committee his proposed $34.3 million budget, up $1.4 million from this year. His spending plan would add all-day kindergarten.

Sharp’s recommended budget is a 4.2 percent hike from the present $32.9 million.

His 104-page budget has not been discussed publicly yet, but the School Committee is slated to examine the spending plan in an all-day workshop on Saturday, March 1, in Gorham Municipal Center, 75 South St.

The Gorham School Department’s budget will require approval by the School Committee, Town Council and Gorham voters in a referendum.

Under Sharp’s proposal, Gorham taxpayers would be asked to pay $16.2 million, which equals 47.2 percent of the total, projected cost of local education for the fiscal year beginning July 1. But figures are subject to change, as Sharp prepared his budget without the benefit of confirmed state subsidy figures.

Sharp, in presenting his proposed budget to the School Committee, called for creative ways to fund today’s schools, which are faced with a growing number of responsibilities and services.

“The reliance of many of the states, including Maine, to fund their public schools based on the property tax and whatever largess may or may not be forthcoming from legislatures, as well as other (decreasing) or unfunded revenue generators, is simply inadequate and unrealistic,” Sharp read to the School Committee from a three-page essay he prepared.

Under his budget, the amount Gorham taxpayers would be responsible for would jump up $1.2 million from the current $15 million. The state’s general purpose aid is anticipated to be $15.2 million.

But, when presented the budget, Gorham school officials were left waiting for confirmation of its state subsidy figure.

“School administrative units typically get this calculation from the department in February or March, and our finance team expects to send them out to Maine’s 200-plus districts in the coming weeks,” Samantha Warren, spokeswoman for the Maine Department of Education, said on Wednesday.

Using preliminary figures, including one for the town’s total valuation, Sharp’s proposed budget would raise the tax rate for Gorham property owners by 84 cents per $1,000 of valuation. Taxes would increase $168 on a home assessed for $200,000.

Sharp said in his prepared statement that his proposed budget is the seventh budget since the recession of 2008 and that producing a budget to support education is increasingly difficult. In 2008, Gorham’s school budget was $29.7 million.

“Schools, as we know them, were never designed to assume the challenges and the responsibilities that contemporary society expects of them,” Sharp read.

“Exacerbating this situation is the reliance of many states on the property tax to fund public education. This is a formula fraught with inadequacy and inequity. Maine is one of those states,” he read.

As an example of what society demands, Gorham now has a half-day kindergarten but Sharp’s budget includes an all-day program that would begin in the fall, raising the proposed budget $552,056. The kindergarten upgrade follows a plea in recent years from a number of Gorham parents, proponents of implementing an all-day kindergarten program.

According to Sharp’s budget cover letter, his budget also would include $414,665 to meet the “2013 proposal of the governor requiring local schools to fund teacher retirement costs previously funded by the state and $77,000 to cover existing and anticipated charter school tuitions.”

He also included estimates for other increasing expenses, like a 4 percent hike in health and dental insurance and a 5 percent increase in other insurance.

New initiatives in the local school budget would total $746,556. In addition to the all-day kindergarten, Sharp’s budget would add $32,000 for a part-time Spanish teacher at Gorham Middle School and also institutes a science, technology, engineering and math program at the high school, costing $87,500. That figure includes $70,000 for a teacher and $17,500 for resources. Also, the budget restores a grades 6-12 numeracy specialist position costing $70,000.

Since 2008, the Gorham School Department had slashed some 50 jobs, mostly through attrition.

“This is the first budget during the seven years since the onset of the recession where reductions are at a bare minimum,” Sharp read. “To further reduce staff is an invitation to seriously compromise the K-12 educational program.”

Sharp warned that public education is at a “tipping point ” and that “antiquated regulations and statutes” hamper the potential of public school districts raising additional funds.

“Our current bureaucracy discourages the initiatives and creative proposals that could lead to a broader base of financial support for public schools,” Sharp read.

Sharp said, “The proposed FY15 School Department budget is well conceived, representing our best effort to provide an educational program designed to enable each child to flourish.”

Ted Sharp