UNITY - In a story that has become familiar among Maine school districts this year, the proposed 2013-14 budget for Regional School Unit 3 includes a combination of deep cuts and a likely tax increase. The 11-town Western Waldo County district lowered its own costs this year but faced additional reductions in state aid.

In his budget message, school board chairman Phil Shibles said the district has been reining in its budget by more than a half-million dollars per year since 2008 — the same could not be said of taxes, he said. During the same time period, over 25 teacher and 10 support staff positions were cut, an elementary school was considered for closure and the district returned to a single bus run system, "all in order to continue providing a quality education to the students of RSU 3 while being fiscally accountable to our taxpayers," he said.

In a separate budget note, RSU 3 Superintendent Heather Perry said despite an additional $380,000 in cuts made by the board to the upcoming budget, taxpayers would still see an overall increase of $292,000 or 4.4-percent. 

"The state once again is nowhere near its 55-percent commitment to fund public education," she said, referring to the 2004 citizen referendum that required the legislature to pay that proportion of the education costs determined by the state.

Cuts in the 2013-14 budget include 3.5 Ed Tech positions at Monroe and Morse Elementary Schools and Mount View Middle School. The Clifford Performing Arts Center director position would also be eliminated, custodial hours would be reduced and the replacement of the roof at Troy Elementary School would be postponed.

"To make these adjustments in positions and programming with minimal impacts to students," Perry said, "we had to re-think how we were providing some services."

To this end, she said, the board recommended several addition including: Grade 6 and 9 leadership retreats, an increase in the stipend for the volunteer/internship coordinator and an increase in the local assessment for the School Nutrition Program.

The bottom line, she said, includes a contingency for the governor's proposal to shift responsibility for half of the publicly-funded portion of the teacher retirement program to local districts, which she anticipated would cost the district roughly $88,000. The state's Legislature's Education Committee recommended that the bill not pass, but as Brian Carpenter superintendent of neighboring RSU 20 said earlier this week, the governor's proposal might not pass, but the expense could return to the districts midway through the year in the form of a curtailment.

The public will have a chance to weigh in on RSU 3's proposed 2013-14 budget at a public budget meeting on May 22 at 7 p.m. at the Mount View Elementary/Middle School Gym. The budget then goes referendum on June 11 for final approval.

The complete budget can be viewed here.

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Ethan Andrews can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com