Dear Editor: 

Contributing to the financial challenges of the Edgecomb school system was a shift from contract services to full-time,salaried employees with full benefits.  An example of how this dramatically increases cost is an analysis of social work services.  In FY2021 and FY2022 that service was provided entirely by contract services:  

FY2020Budgeted = $24,653Actual = $19,531Avg. No. SPED students = 19 

FY2021  Budgeted = $24,390Actual = $17,190Avg. No. SPED students = 20 

In FY2023 a social worker was added to the staff as a salaried employee with full benefits, primarily by using “ESSER” (Covid) funds.  The pandemic is now over and those funds are gone.  As a result, the FY2026 cost for social work services are budgeted as follows: 

Salary & Benefits = $118,543 

Contract Social Services = $13,000 

Average No. SPED students = 13 

Therefore, as a result of that change, the total cost of social work services has increased 674% relative to FY2020, while providing services to 32% fewer students.  This alsohighlights a major disadvantage of adding fulltime staff to a small organization.  Specifically, the need for certain services can reasonably be expected to vary year-to-year, based upon the number of students requiring that service.  Contracted services can vary with that need, whereas the cost of a salaried position cannot. 

Please note this analysis is not meant in any way as a comment on the quality of the social work services.  It is just one of numerous examples of the challengesfacing small schools throughout this country.  These problems require careful analysis and creative solutions.  “Chicken Little” hysteria such as “they want to close the school” creates considerable emotion, butoffersno solutions.  Note also, the analysis offered by one school board member at a recent meeting  “The problem is Edgecomb residents don’t pay enough taxes” has not been acceptable to New Englanders since December 16, 1773. 

Kathryn Rohr MD 

Edgecomb