Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the School Budget topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Lewiston Public Schools superintendent urges voters to back 29-cent mill rate increase in referendum
Summary
Superintendent Jake Langless asked residents to vote in a referendum that would fund a 2.15% budget increase for Lewiston Public Schools, a proposal officials say is driven largely by personnel costs, enrollment growth and building needs.
Jake Langless, superintendent of Lewiston Public Schools, urged residents to vote in a referendum tomorrow on a budget that includes a proposed 29-cent increase on the local mill rate and a 2.15% spending increase approved by the school committee and the city council.
The request matters because Lewiston school officials say 71% of district spending covers personnel and that personnel-related requests account for about 95% of the budget increase. "Seventy-one percent of our total budget is our people," Langless said, adding that officials scrutinized nonpersonnel spending line by line to limit the local ask.
School leaders told the town-hall audience the school committee approved a 2.15% increase and the city council subsequently approved the same percentage. Langless said the district is proposing a 29-cent increase on the local mill rate; he noted the city’s final decision landed "around 50¢" and the county at "23¢," and cautioned he might be slightly off on those numbers because recent decisions were still being finalized. The referendum will be open at Longley School from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., Langless said. "So if you're watching this now, please make a plan to go vote tomorrow," he said.
The district reported a state subsidy of more than $80 million and a local ask of $31,300,000. Officials said they reduced the amount of fund balance used from last year by 36.65% to avoid greater local tax requests in future years. Langless described that step as balancing the need to use reserves to limit this year's local ask while preserving some reserves for unexpected repairs such as roofs.
Officials emphasized program priorities in the budget. Article 1 (regular instruction) and Article 2 (special education) account for more than 60% of the budget, the superintendent said. Career and technical education represents about 4.6% and includes programs tied to LRTC and offerings in Auburn that fall under the district’s budget.
Langless highlighted the district’s "Climb" special-education program, which serves more than 20 students, many with autism or other high needs, and said keeping those students in-district saves money that otherwise would be spent on tuition and transportation. He estimated that the program saves the district about $2,000,000 a year.
Enrollment growth and space constraints were central to the presentation. Langless said Lewiston now has more than 6,000 students (he cited a count of about 6,070 the prior week) and more than 2,000 multilingual students. The district recently acquired 287 Main Street, a building that needs rehabilitation; Langless said passage of the budget and the capital plan (LCIP) would allow concept and design work for that site to move forward. He also said he was aware of proposals and permits that could add roughly 500 to 700 new housing units in the next two to three years and that if those apartments house students, enrollment could increase further.
On staffing, Langless said feedback from school staff has been largely supportive because the budget would allow the district to "stay whole from a staffing perspective" despite federal funding uncertainties that affect some positions.
Langless closed the meeting by again urging voters to participate in the referendum and said he would remain after the event for follow-up questions. The referendum outcome will determine whether the district can proceed with planned work that officials said depends on voter approval, including work tied to 287 Main Street and capital planning.
