FREEPORT – Freeport, Durham and Pownal residents will have a chance to weigh in on a $25,810,307 proposed 2013-2014 Regional School Unit 5 budget during a public meeting Wednesday, May 22, at Freeport High School.

The proposed spending plan is $910,307 higher than this year’s budget of $24,900,000, representing a 4 percent hike.

The annual public budget meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. Residents will vote on the budget article by article in a “town meeting” style gathering. Residents will have the ability to amend any of the allotted amounts, make additions or subtractions to items on each article, and help shape the budget that will be put to a final validation referendum on June 11.

“This is a final chance for residents to weigh in,” said Welsh.

Any additional changes made during the May 22 meeting must then be adopted by the school board ahead of the June 11 vote.

The annual budget meeting comes on the heels of lengthy RSU 5 board meeting May 8, in which the members grappled with the looming prospect of absorbing nearly $270,000 in teacher retirement costs that have been historically paid by the state. The uncertainty at the state level, where a budget has yet to be passed, has underscored the anxiety of when and if RSU 5 will have to absorb the retirement costs. In a prior meeting, the board had approved hiring two new educators at a cost of $150,000, but ultimately eliminated one full-time position, a combination assistant principal and literacy coordinator, after learning the share of the district’s retirement cost had risen. The board left intact a position for a full-time math coordinator with a salary of $70,000, but instructed Superintendent Shannon Welsh to hold off on hiring a candidate until the situation in Augusta is resolved.

According to Welsh, $198,751 of the budget will go into a contingency fund in the event the Legislature forces the district to pay the full retirement bill directly to the Maine state retirement fund. The remaining balance would be paid through budget cuts in a yet-to-be-determined area or through remaining funds in contingency.

The 11-member board examined a number of scenarios during its May 8 meeting, including funding the full-time positions, eliminating them all together, or changing the language in the budget to allow for the possibility of the hires, but with safeguards against the cost of the potential retirement costs. If the state decided to not require retirement funding, the allocated money would be put into a contingency fund.

“For a decision that should have been made in the context of a budget cycle with the authorization of the public, we should step off our assertive stance of saying we won’t hire these people now,” board member Peter Murray, who represents Freeport, said at the meeting. “It’s more transparent if these hires are made through funds in the contingency and go before the public.”

By formally adopting the budget on May 8 with the additional contingency funds, ultimately the board compromised by adding one of the two new faculty positions to address both the needs of the district and the frustration of taxpayers, said Welsh.

“The board feels strongly that we need to support our teachers in the content area of mathematics, so we added a math coach to better support our lower-performing math students,” said Welsh.

The potential impact to taxpayers if the proposed budget is adopted by voters is a 9.83 percent increase in the property tax rate for Durham, 2.97 percent in Freeport and 8.91 percent for Pownal.

Under the proposal, the district was able to shave $145,000 from the facilities maintenance budget, which includes heating fuel, electricity and debt service.

Other proposed increases include $57,205 in transportation and buses, $13,000 in school administration and $3,088 in career and technical education. The board also added $4,000 to support the Freeport High School drama program.

A reduction of $16,000 in tuition was included in the budget for RSU 5 students attending charter schools in the fall, as the number of students dropped to 10 from 15.