SAD 1 faces revenue loss
By Scott Mitchell Johnson
Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE — About an hour before last Wednesday’s SAD 1 board meeting, district officials received some troubling news – SAD 1 will be facing a $1.2 million decrease in state aid in 2011-12.
“Even with this preliminary printout,” said business manager Charles Anderson, “we’re not in a panic mode; we’ve been working hard to get our balances to where we thought they needed to be to address a major financial problem, and we addressed a good bit of one last year [a $701,000 decrease in state aid] and it looks like we’ll address another one for the coming year.
“In the next three or four weeks, we’ll digest this and get a more complete readout,” he said. “It looks like our enrollment loss has caught up with us. We reported back in October a student loss of roughly 100, and that has worked its way through. Our 4 percent overall loss – and that’s an average loss – is much greater than many other school districts in the state. Couple that with a state valuation increase of 7 percent, which is far in excess of the average increase, those two numbers have hurt us. But, we’ll deal with it and will have something more concrete to share with you next month.”
Superintendent Gehrig Johnson said there are many other school systems across the state that are receiving similar “distressing news.”
“SAD 1’s percentage loss is one of the largest in The County,” he said, noting that the district will work to hold the tax rate even. “I want to compliment the finance committee and Charlie [Anderson]. They have been preparing for the last several years for a large state subsidy reduction, which we thought was last year with a $701,000 loss, but we’re going to see another even larger reduction for next year.
“We’re not looking at large employee reductions like we had last year, with 28 positions eliminated,” said Johnson. “We’ve planned and are prepared to deal with it. We need time to digest this news and prepare recommendations to you. We will put the budget together in such a way that students remain our top priority.”
One way the district is looking to avoid position cuts is by offering a retirement incentive program for both teachers and non-teaching staff alike. A retirement incentive program was offered only to teachers last year, of which three opted to participate.
“We have a large number of teachers that are eligible – about twice the number as last year,” said Johnson. “Out of fairness to the support staff, we added the non-teaching staff into the mix.”
Under the proposal, teachers who have reached normal retirement age as defined by statute (either age 60 or 62 depending upon dates of service), who are presently eligible, based on service, for full retirement under the Maine Public Employee Retirement System, have been employed as a teacher for at least 25 years, and meet all other conditions are eligible to receive a one-time incentive payment of $400 per year of each year of teaching experience if they submit a written notice of retirement no later than April 15.
“Last year, teachers were offered a flat payment of $10,000,” Johnson said. “This year’s proposal acknowledges a teacher’s years of service. We have 16 teachers who are eligible and the incentive would range from $10,000-$14,500.
“The non-teaching staff would be offered $100 per year for each year of employment with SAD 1,” he said.
To be eligible, members of the support staff must have been employed for at least 10 consecutive years in the district. Non-teaching staff would need to provide written notice of their intent to retire by April 15, as well.
Johnson said of the support staff eligible to participate in the program, the highest amount paid would be about $4,500, noting that most of the support personnel are in the Social Security system rather than the state retirement system.
Director Paul Saija said he had mixed emotions about the incentive plan.
“I feel sad that we’ll probably lose some veteran teachers,” he said, “but on the other hand, it would make sense if it avoids people being laid off.”
The retirement incentive program plan was unanimously approved by directors.
The next regular SAD 1 meeting will be held at 5 p.m. Wednesday, March 16 at the Presque Isle High School board conference room.
