Dear Editor:

None of us on the School Committee who voted “yes” loved voting for the school budget for next year. But we did so because, just to maintain our current level of education, we had to support an overall 15% increase. This happened even though we hired only one new staff, and did not create any new programs.

Here are the big reasons why we have the increase for this upcoming year. First, the district will lose $200K in state funding over this year. Second, we had budgeted so tightly for this year that we did not have much unexpended carryover from the current budget to use to keep next year’s budget lower. Last year we applied $1m in unexpended funds to keep this year’s budget lower. For the coming year, we have only $600k left to apply to next year’s budget, a “loss” of $400k.

Our biggest expenditures are on people; teachers, guidance counselors, ed techs and safety staff. The cost for regular instruction was up by almost $600k. This is due to our contracted raises for the teachers, plus the built-in “step” increases. Some of that increase is due to moving some costs from special ed, which is down almost $200k. In addition we are required by the state to fund teacher retirement costs, which for the coming year are up considerably. Health insurance costs for our staff for next year are up by about $170k.

Finally, the school budget for materials and supplies is up by 5 to 6% just due to inflation.

Over the past two years our budget represented a decrease each year for Boothbay and an increase for the Harbor of 7% one of the last two years, and a decrease the other year. We will continue to try to keep budgets as low as possible.

Bottom line: Those of us who supported the budget did so to ensure the continuation of the truly great educational opportunities that our schools provide for our kids.we hope you will attend the budget town meeting on May 25 at 6 p.m. in the high school gym, and support this budget for next year.

Bruce MacDonald

Abby Jones

Members of the CSD School Committee

Boothbay