SAD 29 budget committee asks for $75,000 more in cuts

By Joseph Cyr
Staff Writer
    HOULTON — Additional budget cuts are on the way for SAD 29 after the district’s budget committee directed Superintendent Steve Fitzpatrick to trim an additional $75,000 from the proposed 2010-11 spending package during a special meeting Monday night.
    Exactly where those cuts will be made is something Fitzpatrick will now wrestle with, but he won’t have long to decide where to trim. The revised budget will be presented to the committee Friday at 2 p.m. during a special meeting before going to the full board next week.
    The school board rejected the $11,932,925.45 budget last week, which sent it back to committee for further work. That work took place Monday evening, where committee members spent nearly two hours going over line items in the budget.
    As presented, the 2010-11 school budget already featured a decrease of $58,623.57 from the current year and, thanks to a large carryover, included a reduction in the local assessments of about $300,000.
    Fitzpatrick had previously called his presented budget a “win-win” scenario since it reduced the burden to taxpayers, while at the same time increased programs.
    The inclusion of two new math teaching positions in the proposed budget drew considerable discussion. Fitzpatrick said the two positions needed to be included in the budget as placeholders, even though the board had not yet decided to create the two positions.
    “If you have a target or a specified amount you would like to see come out of this budget, that would be helpful,” Fitzpatrick said. “You folks are dealing with a budget that is nearly $12 million.”
    “If we want to cut, we can cut,” said board chairman Liz Anderson “If there are some fat areas, let’s have at them. If there are cuts that are not reasonable, we’ll determine it.”
    “I’m frustrated because I feel we are not getting anywhere,” said board member Kim Thompson. “I could start there [cutting $75,000].”
    Fitzpatrick suggested he could simply take additional money out of the carryover account to reduce the budget, but that could have a negative impact when it comes time to do the 2011-12 budget.
    “We need to make a decision and move forward on this,” he said.
    Some members of the committee expressed reservations about taking an additional $75,000 from the contingency account, and instead suggested that reductions to the line items of the budget should be made instead.
    “I think that was what we were already expecting,” Anderson said. “The [board’s] expectation was you had already gone line by line over the budget and made reductions. I would prefer you do that. It does mean more work, but if you can squeeze it, squeeze it.”