In 2005, the Boothbay region schools implemented an energy audit that has since saved them $424,000. Facilities/Transportation Director Dave Benner explained how during the Jan. 4 Boothbay-Boothbay Harbor CSD Board of Trustees meeting. “Ten years ago, we changed out the steam boilers to hot water boilers and spent $379,000 on energy upgrades. We used to buy about 52,000 gallons of fuel a year for the elementary school. We're down to about 30,000 gallons. The high school is down to 19,000 gallons from 40,000 gallons. It paid itself forward.”

Benner told the trustees it is time for another upgrade, and he is talking to a couple of different companies regarding audit services.

Benner also mentioned that the Maine Department of Transportation would install an eight-inch pipe near the school that will hopefully eliminate an annual flooding and freezing problem. “We've had water in front of the school all 16 years I've been here. We thought it was a main break, but it's groundwater with no place to go,” he said. Beavers building dams behind the YMCA have only compounded the problem, according to Benner.

Alternative Organizational Structure 98 Superintendent Eileen King provided the trustees with updated financials. “As far as our revenue right now, we've received 48 percent to date. Revenue and state subsidies are coming in as expected. I don't expect changes to the state subsidy this coming year,” she said. Expenditures are following the pattern set during the previous budget year. “In ’15-’16 we had 54 percent of the budget remaining and in ’16-’17, we have 53 percent. We're spending exactly what we expected,” she said. King said the relatively mild winter the area has thus far experienced has curbed expenditures. “We haven't had a lot of snow removal, so we'll start to see those numbers change as we go,” she said.

After the trustees adjourned, a public meeting was held in the Boothbay Region Elementary School gym to vote on Articles 1A through 13 authorizing expenditures for the Rocky Channels School System/Alternative Organizational Structure, or AOS 98, cost center categories. Boothbay Harbor resident Al Roberts served as moderator. All articles were voted through by the public.