RSU 04 budget workshop: classroom staffing, class sizes and costs dominate discussion as district plans two budget versions

Oak Hill High School and district administrators presented a detailed budget workshop for cost center 1 (regular instruction), showing two draft budget versions: one assuming Sabatas Primary School (SPS) remains open and one that assumes SPS closes and staff and programs are relocated.

Administrators said most increases in the classroom budget stem from personnel costs. The district presented figures showing a proposed salary increase across cost center 1 and a planned 15% assumption for health insurance premiums; salary-related increases in the presentation totaled about $268,658 for the cost center. Administrators also highlighted a new copier lease that will raise building-level operating costs for the first time in several years and warned that changes in vendor bands for health insurance could alter the final number once the insurer sets rates in March.

Presenters walked trustees through class-size averages and staffing plans under both scenarios. For elementary grades the district emphasized that classroom counts mostly shift locations rather than disappear: under the closure plan the district would move pre-K and some…