FREEPORT

A half-million dollar error in the initial school district budget proposal led to the superintendent and finance director working to shift funding to avoid cutting a math teacher position.

Regional School Unit 5 Superintendent Becky Foley said she and district finance director, Michelle Lickteig, were successful in reappropriating money in the budget so an additional teaching position for a new math program at the middle and high school levels remained.

The $32 million district budget proposal was presented to the Regional School Unit 5 board last month, and questions were raised about how to best balance the needs of students and the tax burden on residents.

The total operating budget is a 3.9 percent increase, or $1.2 million, mostly due to an across the board 2.5 to 3 percent increase in educators’ salaries, a 6.5 percent increase in health care coverage for staff, and the shifted responsibility for retirement payments from the state to districts. The additional loss in state subsidy to the district this year is $211,000. The expected state subsidy is $4.3 million.

The error that created the dilemma was an estimate of shared revenue that was incorrectly forwarded from last year’s budget into the new proposal, and falsely lowered the tax impact to residents. The total amount of shared revenue for the proposed budget is $1,330,192, but the error had listed it as $600,000, hiking the net tax impact to 6.3 percent from 4.2 percent of the budget presented at a January board meeting. The school board requested the budget be reviewed again to reduce the impact to about 5 percent.

Foley explained shared revenue is money the district gets from other sources, in addition to state aid and taxes. For example, RSU 5 receives money from Freeport to maintain Hunter Road Fields as well as state agency funds that reimburse the district for certain areas of special education.

One option that was considered was to cut a new math teacher position, but that was avoided. Foley said the last thing the district wanted to cut was instruction.

“We are adopting a new math program at the middle and high school level for next year. There is a need to differentiate instruction for our strongest math students in seventh and eighth grades in Durham and Freeport. This teacher would work with that student population in an effort to meet the needs of all math learners,” Foley said in an email.

The solution was found in a variety of cuts and re-appropriations. About $100,000 initially earmarked from the undesignated fund balance to go toward paying off debt in the nutrition department was then redirected to lowering the overall budget, and about $88,000 set aside for supplies and equipment will be purchased from savings and will not be raised. Additionally, foregoing a 3 percent increase in money for supplies and books will save about $17,000. Other reductions across the budget totaled $73,000, said Foley.

Overall, the first budget presented to the public and the school board was reduced by about $280,000. The board was comfortable with the reduction and voted to adopt the budget, Foley said.

A public vote on the proposed budget is slated for June 13.