CARIBOU, Maine — The RSU 39 school board unanimously approved the district’s next fiscal year budget Wednesday, featuring a slight increase over last year’s.
If passed by local voters, the 2023-2024 budget will total $22,053,109, a 5.8 percent increase over the previous year’s budget of $20,826,248.
That means the local education-based mill rate will be 11.31 per $1,000 of property value, an increase of 1.46 mills over last year.
Caribou residents will pay $4,451,017 total for the school portion of their tax bills compared to $3,754,214 last year. Stockholm residents will pay $136,756 total compared to $133,557 last year.
Most of the budget’s increases come from salary and benefits increases for staff, negotiated through collective bargaining agreements with the local teacher’s union. Salaries total $604,800 this year while health insurance will total $240,000.
Special education accounts for the most increases. If approved, that budget’s total will be $2,838,191 compared to $2,118,345 last year.
Special Education Director Eric McGough attributed the increase to increased staff needed to support more students coming into the program.
“We saw an increase of approximately 20 percent over last year,” McGough said.
Despite the increases, the budget does not include $368,700 of capital improvement projects that were removed, Bouchard said. Those reductions played a role in decreasing the originally proposed budget of $24,200,028, which would have been a 16.2 percent increase from last year.
Among the eliminated projects were $105,000 for new paving at Caribou High School and Caribou Technology Center and $98,000 to replace the high school gym’s roof.
“These are projects that we’ll have to do eventually but don’t absolutely need to be done now,” Bouchard said.
This year, the district will focus most of its capital investment on resurfacing the high school’s outdoor track. That project is estimated to cost $917,000, with $871,000 towards the resurface work and $746,000 in engineering fees.
With $650,000 paid through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, a federal COVID relief program, and $175,000 coming from the capital project reserve account, the district will need to pay $93,000 from its own funds, said Superintendent Tim Doak.
Board members said the district should pursue potential community fundraising that would reduce the project’s cost on taxpayers.
The track is open 24 hours a day for community members and has become a popular place for events and other school districts, Doak said.
“Washburn, Fort Fairfield and our own middle school students use the track. We host a cancer awareness walk every spring. So our track gets pretty busy,” Doak said.
The board-approved budget includes many eliminated positions, including five educational technicians originally hired during COVID and funded through ESSER.
With social distancing, temperature checks and other precautions no longer a requirement for schools, the district won’t need the additional ed tech positions, Bouchard noted.
The board also voted unanimously to eliminate teaching positions in world languages, math and music. The latter two positions have been vacant throughout the school year due to a lack of new applicants.
“We’ve had a long-term substitute [for math], a retired teacher who was willing to help out,” said Assistant Superintendent Jane McCall. “But we haven’t had any applicants.”
The same has happened when trying to hire a music teacher, McCall said. But there is a current ed tech working with the two remaining music teachers who hopes to earn her teacher’s certificate. If she does, McCall said, she can become a full-time teacher.
Doak attributed budget constraints for why he and school administrators recommended eliminating a world languages teacher.
“We had to make a decision on whether to eliminate positions in English, science, social studies or languages,” Doak said. “With only two world language teachers, we knew we could pursue other options while keeping the program intact.”
Caribou High School’s language teachers are Jonna Boure and Daniel Jackson. The board’s vote eliminated Boure’s position. She will be employed until July 1, when the new fiscal year begins.
McCall said the district will pursue online learning opportunities or partnerships with area schools so students can continue taking upper-level math and language courses.
Not having the three full-time teaching positions removes nearly $200,000 from the budget, Bouchard noted.
Board members recommended that they revisit those positions next year to see if their elimination negatively impacted learning.
In other business, the board voted unanimously to hire Samantha Drost as a new Caribou High School social studies teacher in the fall. Drost currently teaches social studies at Central Aroostook High School in Mars Hill.
“She is the first teaching candidate who we’ve seen visit the school before being hired,” Doak said. “By midday and after meeting with us, she absolutely wanted to come work here.”
RSU 39 will hold its annual district budget meeting at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 17, at the Caribou Performing Arts Center.
The next regular school board meeting will be at 5:30 p.m., Wednesday, May 10, at the Caribou Community School cafeteria.
