City and School Budgets Discussed At Public Meeting

May 11, 2006
By Greta Sproul

Questions about what will have to go in the next round of cuts dominated the city and school board budget meeting held at the Old Town Public Library last Wednesday night. High emotions were evident as Old Town residents, teachers, and students took the floor during the joint meeting of the city council and the school board.

"Is there going to be a revised budget before the second reading of the city council meeting?" Sara Lindsay asked. "I think that people should have the chance to comment on it."

City manager Peggy Daigle attempted to articulate the difficulty that both the city council and the school board face in making cuts that will affect nearly every strata of Old Town's population. She cited the fact that the council and the board were holding a joint meeting as a case in point.
"This is unusual," she said. "The city council has never been faced with this before, and it's fairly new to me as well. We're trying to map out a way for the school to get through the budget."
Daigle explained that as recently as last March, the city council had been looking into the appropriation of money for the repair of the middle school roof as well as for school budget relief.
"Then, two days later, the mill closed," she said.

Much of the night's discussion centered on what Daigle referred to as "the best case scenario." That scenario would include the city receiving half of its lost revenue back from the state through the emergency legislation passed last week in the House. But even with the recouping of that amount of lost revenue, the school board cuts that were already slated to occur prior to the mill's closing would have to be made. Strong opinions on where those cuts should and should not be made were the focus of the public hearing portion of the night.

"As a member of this community, it's very tough to sit here and listen to this," Sara Lindsay said. "Looking at the numbers provided on the budget worksheet, the school board is already trying hard to contain its costs. The city has not had to cut anything."

Lindsay went on to say that she didn't mean that the remainder of the cuts should all be absorbed by the city.

"I, as a citizen, would be willing to pay more in taxes to keep the services that are important to me," she said. "The more you cut the schools, the less attractive they are to potential residents who are thinking about moving into the area."

Concern for the ability of Old Town's schools to serve the needs of its students and to attract new students was echoed by several others who attended the meeting. Several OTHS students and an OTHS alumnus currently attending UMaine spoke out spoke up on behalf of the New Media Program taught by Sean Wasson.

"Mr. Wasson's class made me what I am today," one student said. "Before I took it, I wasn't even planning on going to college. I was, like, 'Whatever." But Mr. Wasson pushed me and made me want to do well. Now there are five colleges after me because o what I learned to do in computer class."

OTHS alumnus Justin Chase said that the reason he chose to attend Old Town schools as a Milford tuition student was that he was drawn to the variety of programs that were offered.
"If I had to make the same decision about where to go to high school today, I would not want to come to Old Town," he said. "The new media program that Mr. Wasson teaches is about the future. Students have to know technology to be able to get by in the real world today. What are you going to say to them? 'Okay, you can learn about technology up until the eight grade, then, after that, you're all done'?"

School board member Dave Wollstadt responded by saying that the new media program taught by Wasson has previously been on the "chopping block", but that it had not been cut at this point. Old Town School Superintendent David Walker expressed another point of view regarding the recent budget reductions.

"The disappointing part of all this is that the negative press the school is getting has actually led to the loss of students," he said. "I had a call the other day from someone who had decided not to send their kids to Old Town schools because of what they heard in the media. The more we discuss what we don't have, the more we lose."

Walker added that until the school can "find bottom", the fear generated by the unknown would continue to have its own negative impact on the school's ability to attract tuition students.
"Tuition students are a huge piece of what we do," he said.

Jodi Cameron, a seventh grade teacher and a field hockey coach at OTHS, told the city council and the school board that she thought the staff at the Old Town middle school was "amazing" and that they did their best to "keep up morale" for one other.

"I would just like to have a long legacy in the Old Town school system," she said. "I would like to be here for thirty-five years as a part of the lives of the kids in this city."

But the implication from some of those who spoke that the city was not making enough cuts on its side drew strong responses from the council. When one local resident urged the council to vote for the higher mil rate of 26.00, which would decrease the amount of the city and school budget cuts from $1,261,976 to $ 946,482, city finance director Joe Schlick explained that a 26.00 mil rate would increase business owners' tax bills by about $4,000.

"I have elderly people who call me and say that they can't afford to pay any more tax increases," City Council President Gary Sirois said. "They tell me that they don't have kids in school anymore, and that they already have to choose between fuel and oil and medicine."

Sirois asked those calling for more municipal cuts if they were prepared to do without some of the basic services that the city now provides.

"If anyone here has some magic numbers we can use, come and tell us," he said. "Sure, we could have a volunteer library staff, but who would be the volunteers? Yes, we could have a volunteer fire department and a volunteer ambulance service, but if we're going to do away with those kinds of services, why don't we just become a township and let the state take care of us?"
Peggy Daigle reminded those present that the cuts slated to be made in the school budget were already in place before the mill closed. She referenced the general decrease in available tuition students as well as students in general.

"It's not just about attracting new families to the area," she said. "It's also about doing our best to provide for the ones who are already here."

Asked by one Old Town resident whether there had ever been a comparison done with other cities of the same size and tax valuation to see where Old Town stands in terms of its school budget, Peggy Daigle said that there wasn't time to make such comparisons right now.
"Right now," she said, "these are the numbers we have to work with. Maybe at some later stage of the game, the city council and school board could do a comparison. But right now we don't have time for anything but taking care of the current situation."

The city council voted for a 50/50 reduction in the city and school budgets with a two-tier process that would give an overview of any possible changes in percentage. Daigle said that she and Dave Walker would work closely together to look at ways in which the loss of specific services would affect the community.

"This is a time when we really have to work together, not just talk about it," she said.