A controversial redistricting plan and a $40 million school budget for fiscal 2009 were unanimously adopted in separate votes Monday night during a marathon South Portland School Board meeting at City Hall.

Although board members expressed support for redistricting and the new spending package, they acknowledged that both represented tough decisions.

“Unfortunately, this is not utopia and these are not easy decisions for myself or for the board,” said board member Michael Eastman prior to the votes.

The $40 million school budget the School Board adopted includes the loss of nine positions to cover $683,000 in state funding cuts.

Seven of the nine cuts will come through retirement or attrition, said Polly Ward, business manager for the South Portland School Department.

Two filled positions targeted for cuts are at the high school. Ward said it is possible that staff will be able to move into vacant jobs and avoid layoffs.

Taxpayers are being asked to pay $33.8 million of the budget. The tax rate comes to $9.07 per $1,000 valuation, for an increase of 36 cents over this year.

The budget next faces the City Council, April 2.

The redistricting plan, which goes into effect in September, will save the school department $304,000 by easing the need to hire new teachers in schools that had been struggling with rising enrollments and class sizes.

But while the School Board agreed late last week to alter the redistricting plan to meet some of the public’s concerns, it still splits some existing neighborhoods and buses students to more distant schools.

Some students in the west side, Brick Hill neighborhood will go to Brown Elementary School on the city’s east side, at the foot of Meeting House Hill.

Pockets of students in the Mitchell Road area will move from Brown to Small Elementary School in the Willard Beach neighborhood.

And some Skillin Elementary School students who live off Main Street in the Thornton Heights neighborhood will move to Kaler Elementary School, off Broadway.

“Can you tell me what school my daughter will be going to?” Michelle Murray of Cornell Street asked the board members immediately after the vote.

Board members quickly leafed through documents to inform Murray that her child will move from Skillin to Kaler this fall.

“I am losing faith in this community,” Murray added. “I’m starting to regret our move to South Portland. Most students go their entire school careers without having to undergo this kind of disruption.”

South Portland residents spent two hours voicing concerns about the redistricting plan, which will send 140 students to new schools in September.

But it took the School Board only about 20 minutes to reach a unanimous decision to adopt the citywide plan, which redraws school boundary lines to even out enrollments at the elementary and middle schools.

Some schools, such as Skillin and Dyer, are filling up because of new residential construction on the outskirts of the city. Others, such as Kaler, are not operating at capacity.

“What heartens me about tonight is that everyone I heard from does not want their children to leave the school they are in,” said School Board Chairman Richard Carter. “That tells me that no child will lose in the long run by switching schools.”

But members of the public complained about their children having to leave their friends and neighborhood. They also reiterated complaints from previous meetings about a lack of information from the school department, and a rush to adopt the citywide plan.

The School Board voted on the redistricting plan just 12 days after releasing it to the public on Feb. 28. Within that time, the board agreed to drop the original proposal for an alternative plan developed by two parents.

That alternative plan, adopted by the School Board on Monday night, mitigated the impact on Dyer Elementary School students who live off Highland Avenue and decreased the number of elementary students citywide affected by redistricting from 171 to 140.

Some parents who live off Highland Avenue and were spared redistricting praised the school board for their willingness to be flexible. But they also worried aloud that other families faced with redistricting would feel the process was unfair.

Stephanie Netto, whose son attends Skillin, was among a handful of parents who questioned why the school board accepted the alternative proposal, which was developed by two Dyer parents.

“I felt that I was playing in a game where the rules were changed suddenly and no one told me,” she said. “I did not know that we could come up with an alternative plan.”

Netto also said she wished that the board had paid closer attention to promoting socio-economic diversity in the elementary schools.

Netto said there is too much disparity between rich and poor schools.

For example, roughly 40 percent of Kaler and Skillin students in 2008-09 will qualify for free or reduced lunches based on family income.

Dyer, by contrast, will have less than 15 percent.

Christine Kaiser, who lives in the Brick Hill neighborhood, shared more practical concerns about the redistricting plan and its potential effect on her son.

Kaiser said she only learned last week from a neighbor that her son likely would be bused from Skillin across South Portland to Brown.

Kaiser said her neighbor only found out about the redistricting plan from her second-grade daughter.

“There are three streets in my Brick Hill neighborhood that are going to Brown, and I don’t think that most of the parents know what is going on,” said Kaiser, who lives on Rollins Way. “I don’t own a vehicle.”

Many of the families in the Brick Hill neighborhood, which is near the Maine Mall, are on low incomes.

Kaiser told the school board that her son, who is in kindergarten, suffers from severe asthma. Kaiser said she is called by Skillin once or twice a week, when her son is in distress. She typically walks to school to bring him home.

Kaiser worries about how she will get to Brown, when he is having an asthma attack. “To get across South Portland is a 40-minute bus ride,” she said.

Kaiser also wondered aloud how other Skillin families who must move their children to Brown will afford the gas or a babysitter to attend meetings or pick up a sick child.

Assistant Superintendent Steve Bailey said after the school board meeting that some students from the Brick Hill neighborhood are being moved across the city to Brown, because there already is an “established community of Brick Hill students there.”

Several English Language Learners who live in the Brick Hill neighborhood go to Brown for special curriculum.

Despite the emotional testimony, there were some parents who appealed for everyone to stay calm and be positive for their children.

“It doesn’t matter what elementary school or middle school your child goes to in South Portland, they will get a fine education,” said Lori Bowring Michaud.

“If as parents you are positive and share this in a positive light, your children will be OK. If everybody works together, the kids will thrive.”

A CLOSER LOOK

The $40 million school budget will go before the South Portland City Council on Wednesday, April 2, for its endorsement. Voters then will be asked to approve the budget in a citywide referendum, scheduled for sometime in mid-April.

Here are some budget highlights:

• The fiscal 2009 budget is $39,952,991. It is up less than $1 million from last year’s budget, which came in at $39,061,628.

• The state is expected to cover $4 million of the budget; another $2 million will come from school revenues. Local taxpayers will pick up the rest.

• While an earlier version of the school budget called for eliminating 18 positions, only nine will be cut under the adopted plan. Nine positions were spared by moving funds from maintenance requests and balances from capital improvement projects.

• Roughly $30,000 was cut from the Athletic Department, which will eliminate seven assistant coaching positions at the middle school, a high school assistant cheering coach and a freshman field hockey coach.

• The adopted budget meets the City Council’s recommendation of keeping the spending package at or below a 4.18 percent increase.