SALEM -- The big news of the night last Thursday at the MSAD #58 school board meeting came after a short executive session. It was announced that Kingfield middle school English teacher Marco Aliberti will be promoted and take the reigns as principal of the Kingfield school.

Aliberti will take over for Brenda Stevens who has been the principal there for seven years. Based on a school board decision last week, Stevens will be taking over as the new principal at Mt. Abram High School.

The vacancy at Mt. Abram comes with the retirement of award-winning principal Jeanne Tucker. Tucker had spent nearly 20 years at MTA and last year she became the Maine Principal Association's "Principal of the Year."

Also leaving the district next year as well as the 2009/2010 budget will be Phillips' principal David Crandall and Pathway Partners'Gary Perlson.

Superintendent Quenten Clark will become the district's "super-principal" —he will remain the superintendent of the district and also become principal of the Phillips Elementary School.

It was announced that evening that elementary art teacher Steve Mitman will spend half his time at Mt. Abram doing part of what Perlson did for the high school and the other half teaching art at the elementary schools.

This means that the district will proceed into the next budgetary year less two fulltime administrators —nearly a $200,000 savings. This savings coming without the loss of an administrator in any one building, but principals in the future may be playing multiple rolls as teachers and/or program leaders.

Clark passed around the latest version of next year's budget. The newest version shows that the budget stands at $10,132,326, up $299,064 from the previous year.

This increase, Clark explained, was not due to added expenses of the district, but rather the state's desire to control and mandate how each district in the state formulates

its budget. This appears to make the budget look more expensive, Clark explained, but rather it's just a shift in calculations and may in fact not be up at all.

This year, Clark explained as one example, the state is making districts include State Agency Clients in its budget. SAC are students that come from foster homes or other state programs whose expenses are reimbursed by the state.

In the past, the expenditure and revenues for SAC were always handled outside of the district budget. Now, a good amount of this year's budget increase comes in terms of the expenditure side of the SAC account. This is an accounting change, not a change in added service or added expenses. Nearly $155,000 of expenses comes under this SAC heading and is now in the district budget due to state demands.

It is anticipated that the state will continue to reimburse districts for State Agency Clients.

Board members heard about increases in wages for the athletic trainer's position as set forth by Franklin Memorial Hospital. FMH supplies the district with a part-time trainer. The board may want to explore a new way of doing business and instructed athletic director Jeff Pillsbury to look into the possibilities of directly hiring their own trainer.

Board chairman Mike Pond said it's worth exploring and there just may be someone out there that knows their stuff and may not want to give up a portion of their salary to Franklin Memorial Hospital. The part-time trainer's position is currently capped at $7,000.

A new bus, and possibly two, is on the ticket for next year, Clark noted, and said that the state may be able to subsidize the cost for one of them based on its thought that they purchased two this year. If the state subsidizes one bus, the district may be able to purchase a second bus next year.

Clark explained that the district should plan on the cost of 1.5 buses each year to maintain their newer bus fleet or three busses every two years.

Clark told members the good news by reporting extra money in the heating fuel account with the oil prices dropping this past winter. This money or savings could assist with the purchase of buses.

Clark reported that the Mt. Abram librarian's position may be covered by current MTA teachers working the library on shifts. Clark reported that he has spoken to two teachers who are willing to do this and also become certified as librarians.

Likewise they're exploring the opportunities of hiring their own occupational therapist at a tune of nearly $55,000 rather then subcontracting this service through Franklin Memorial Hospital. Currently the district is paying the hospital nearly $100,000 for this service.

Clark did not get into many facility maintenance upgrades that evening, but did say the plan is to replace the 15-year telephone system at the Strong Elementary School. This will come at a cost of nearly $30,000.

After going through each line, Clark said that at this point in the process, they have not cut any programs. "We have not cut any teachers, we have not consolidated any classes, we have not cut any coaches or sports… This is where it is," he said.

"The budget itself is not up dramatically; in fact it may be down a bit. Our subsidy is going to drop by a couple of hundred thousand dollars. We have more tuition revenue coming in."

Clark did report that Jim Rier from the Department of Education most recently said that the reduction in subsidy includes the penalty money for not consolidating. It also includes increases in revenue through the federal stimulus package.

Members agreed to Tuesday April 28 for their next scheduled meeting.