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 grades into Carrie Ricker and Libby Tozier; principals said classroom averages would remain similar because students and teachers would be redistributed. Administrators said, however, that lowering an average would require adding a teacher and that staff reductions depend on final enrollment and referendum results.

At the high school and middle school, curriculum staff reviewed course enrollments, dual-enrollment and Advanced Placement (AP) offerings. Administrators said many dual-enrollment classes are taught at Oak Hill High School by district teachers vetted by partner colleges; those classes currently carry no cost to students but the Maine Department of Education was reported to be considering caps on the number of covered credits, which could affect future district staffing or student choices. The district also summarized course-section sizes and said some low-demand elective courses (often fewer than five requests) are candidates for consolidation or biennial offering. The presentation noted that dual-enrollment uptake shifted some students away from AP in recent years and that colleges vary in whether they accept dual-enrollment credits versus AP scores.

Other budget drivers discussed included summer-school and vacation-school programming, which had been funded more generously with one-time federal ARP/ESSER funds during the pandemic but are proposed at a lower baseline for next year; presenters said summer programming previously ran near $180,000 annually and the draft budget now includes roughly $57,000 for summer and ESY programming, with a higher ‘‘what-if’’ baseline closer to $76,000 when combined with existing figures. The district said it remains open to seeking grants and reallocations to supplement summer offerings.

Administrators also called attention to non-personnel increases: the cost of a districtwide copier lease (district staff said the new agreement reduces machine counts but introduces lease payments), modest increases in building share-center memberships for supplies, and transportation repair and fuel costs. The district reported that the proposed county school resource officer (SRO) arrangement could cost about $142,000 on a full-year basis if the county fills a year-round position; the final cost would be prorated if hiring is delayed.

Principals described how building-level supply, furniture and library requests were reviewed carefully by teacher teams and often reduced or shifted between the ‘‘SPS open’’ and ‘‘SPS closed’’ drafts. Several principals said they had prioritized classroom library replenishment where retiring teachers had taken collections and had asked modestly for SEL (social-emotional learning) texts and targeted professional development rather than broad new staffing requests.

Board members and staff identified follow-up data requests: a line-by-line listing of historic summer-school expenditures, a roster of stipend counts by line (team leaders, mentors and extracurricular stipends), the number of copiers and printers per building for lease planning, and counts of gifted-and-talented students served. Administrators committed to posting workshop materials online and to returning with further cost-center reviews at the next session.

No formal votes on budget adoption were taken at the workshop; the one formal motion at the meeting that passed was the board’s vote to call a referendum on Sabatas Primary School (handled separately).