Irregular Staff

SALEM - - The MSAD #58 school board met last Thursday and voted to approve the 2010 budget of $10,157,642. The budget is set for the referendum process coming soon.

This budget, as determined, is not up nor is it down in terms of how it will hit local communities. The state has imposed new changes to include new standards which add line items to the budget not previously included. These items include State Agency Clients, for example, which will appear to have added costs, but in actuality, future revenues should offset costs to make the budget very similar to last year's budget of $9,833,262.

State Agency Clients are a line item nearing $300,000 yearly.

In terms of taking care of business, the board reduced the amount of early release days from eight as suggested in the proposed budget to five. Eight is the current amount that nearby MSAD #9 has. Superintendent Quenten Clark noted that Rangeley has 35 early release days, nearly one every week. Now, five early release days include the final day of school.

The board also reduced the services of guidance at Mt. Abram High School by eliminating a part-time role held by Cindy Thomas.

"Nurses are not councilors," staff member Mike Ellis argued, they can talk to students, listen to students, but they are not councilors, he said.

Ellis was responding to chairman Mike Pond's comments that there were enough councilors already in place at MTA.

The vote among board members tied and the chair's vote quickly eliminated the position.

Also in a savings measure, the board decided to eliminate contracted services from Franklin Memorial Hospital for occupational therapy costing nearly $120,000 in the past. They decided to hire an in-house person estimated at $55,000 annually. This change based on an estimate of an ever changing case-load study could save the district significant money.

Additional savings occurred when the board decided not to replace a half-time applied technology teaching position. The savings became available without eliminating a position with the retirement of Steve Yates after 31 years. They instead decided to use interested staff members who were willing to offer the courses at no added cost to the district.

Likewise, they eliminated the part-time librarian position in favor of teachers who were willing to open the library and become certified in library arts.

In all, Clark recommended the administrators be frugal this year and next while money comes in through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act or stimulus money.

Capitol improvements for next year were scaled back, but included the painting of the Phillips school and a new telephone upgrade for the Strong Elementary School, as examples.

The public vote on this year's budget will occur on June 11 with the referendum vote set for June 16.