Under the proposed state budget, the town of Scarborough is poised to lose a significant amount of revenue, which could put pressure on the local property tax.

That’s why local elected officials are putting the pressure on Scarborough’s legislative delegation to do what it can to not only protect municipal revenue sharing, but also to increase the town’s share of state aid to education.

Scarborough officials say that as a consequence of the governor’s new, two-year state budget, the town could lose as much as $725,000 in revenue sharing and another $1.1 million in education subsidy.

In a letter to the editor, Town Council Chairwoman Jessica Holbrook said the combined $1.8 million loss of revenue, along with changes in the homestead exemption program, could add $300 to the annual property tax bill of a home valued at $300,000.

Concerns regarding the potential revenue loss led the Town Council to pass a resolution on Feb. 18 that called on the Legislature to carefully consider the governor’s budget because it could lead to a “direct and deleterious effect on property taxpayers.”

When the Scarborough Board of Education met with the town’s legislative delegation last week, it added its voice to the debate, arguing that Scarborough’s preliminary education subsidy number is not equitable.

In particular, board member Chris Caiazzo said it’s unfair that Scarborough only gets 11 percent of what it costs to run the town’s schools from the state, which is the second lowest in Cumberland County.

“We are clearly at a disadvantage,” he said at the Feb. 26 meeting of the school board and local legislators. “(These cuts) are really impacting programs. We’re at the point where we’re struggling to get basic services.”

Caiazzo added that the way the school funding formula is calculated is “not working for us at all. We are clearly behind the 8 ball.”

Board member Jacquelyn Perry also argued that Scarborough should get some type of credit for the $50 million the town has spent of its own money on school projects in the past several years.

“That’s something that should be considered,” she said. And Donna Beeley, the school board chairwoman, said the state puts too many unfunded mandates on the local schools, all of which fall on property taxpayers.

State senators Rebecca Millett, a Democrat, and Amy Volk, a Republican, whose districts include Scarborough, both said the town has been dealt a double whammy in terms of how its education subsidy is calculated.

Unfortunately for the town, its overall valuation has gone up, while at the same time its enrollment is decreasing, which is why Scarborough is seeing such a large cut in the amount it gets from the state to support education.

Volk said while it’s great news in one sense that Scarborough is growing, especially when many other communities are staying flat or decreasing in value, the increase in valuation does have consequences.

Millett also said the school funding formula doesn’t accurately take into account a community’s ability to pay. That’s especially true for a waterfront community like Scarborough, where residents may be land rich, but cash poor.

She added one thing the Scarborough delegation to the State House could do to support school funding is to insist the state pays 55 percent of the cost of education, as it’s mandated to do.

Another thing that might help would be passage of a bill that would return the costs of funding teacher retirement to the state, instead of putting the onus on local school districts.

That could save Scarborough about $520,000 in the new fiscal year, according to school department officials.

Unfortunately, for school districts across Maine, which must get their budgets passed by July 1, it could be well into June before the new state budget is finalized.