In Scarborough, and probably many other Maine cities and towns as well, the school budget development and approval process is rich with traditions. Let’s take a closer look at a couple of them.

April school vacation week itself has a number of its own traditions. Chief among them is the opportunity it may present for a family outing – perhaps a few days in a warmer climate or one last visit to the slopes for some spring skiing.

School superintendents, it turns out, have their own tradition during spring school vacation week. While most of the staff is off, the superintendent will surreptitiously visit the school vault and quietly return to his office with a large parcel tucked under his arm. In the weeks that follow, his office door may be closed rather more often than usual and the faint scent of metal polish may be detected coming from under the office door. Then, one bright morning, at just the right point in the school budget deliberations, he will emerge from his office with a flourish as the sunbeams flash brightly off the fearsome object he carries – the Academic Sword of Damocles.

Parents across the school district tremble as the superintendent fastens the sword by the slimmest of threads just above the futures of their sons and daughters. “Remove one more thin dime from the school budget,” he intones, “and your children’s futures are toast! Even a nickel less, and the education they receive will doom them to acceptance at third-rate colleges, low-paying jobs and lifetimes of financial uncertainty.” (Left unspoken is possibility of living at home in the basement for an extended period.)

A relatively gentle presentation of the sword appeared in Superintendent Entwistle’s introduction to last year’s school budget, which he characterized as making “prioritized, targeted, incremental restorations and investments in key areas critical to preparing all Scarborough students for future learning and successful careers.” What caring parent would dare question any aspect of a budget so critical to their children’s success in life? The Academic Sword of Damocles is the superintendent’s most powerful weapon.

The Numbers Game

Another well-entrenched tradition of the budget process is the numbers game. “The budget,” after all, is a lengthy and fairly complex document. All 281 pages of it are publicly available on the town’s website. Making sense of this mass of numbers, however, is a challenge.

Numbers can be confusing. They can be subject to multiple interpretations. They can be made to dance. So it is with the school budget. Defenders of the budget will cite amounts and comparisons that seek to minimize its apparent impact on taxpayers. Others will present amounts and comparisons that show a more realistic impact of the budget on the taxpaying public.

Here, for example, are three very different – yet completely true statements – about the May 1 version of the school budget. The proposed school budget would result in:

a tax increase of 94 cents per $1,000 of valuation (Sounds innocuous, doesn’t it?)

a 9.6 percent tax increase (Now you have my attention.)

an increase of $282 of tax to $3,213 on a $300,000 house (Yikes!)

Note that in all three cases, it is only the school portion of your tax bill that is being addressed; your total tax bill will also include municipal and county components. When those components are factored in, the overall proposed tax increase for FY 2016 now stands at a whopping 7.0 percent.

The accompanying table shows what the tax bill will look like on a $300,000 home next year.

That’s right. We’re looking at a 7 percent overall tax increase next year, assuming there are no changes to the fiscal 2016 budget between now and the June 9 school budget referendum. And about 90 percent of that increase is directly attributable to the school budget. In this time of minimal inflation and very slight wage increases, a 7 percent increase to one of a family’s largest expense items is just not defensible.

Between now and the referendum, you will hear many explanations, justifications and defenses of the nearly 10 percent increase in the school portion of your tax bill. None of these will change the amount of the check that you will write to pay your tax bill. On June 9, please vote no on a 9.6 percent school budget increase.

Steve Hanly is a Scarborough resident. Visit his blog or contact him at www.LookOutScarborough.com.

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