SEARSPORT - Regional School Unit 20 voters trimmed the district's draft 2013-14 budget by just over $360,000 at a public budget meeting at Searsport District High School, July 22.

Monday night's meeting was the second public review of the budget — a costlier version approved at a meeting in May was rejected at a referendum in June. The revisions made on Monday go before voters for final approval July 30.

Over the past two months, the budget debate has swung between opposing ideals of lowering taxes and preserving existing services. Public debate has been vigorous so far, but if the last budget meeting was any indication, the public debate doesn't necessarily mirror what will happen at the polls. 

The hometown crowd at a May 31 budget meeting in Belfast reinstated a long list of positions the school board had attempted to eliminate as a way make up for lost state revenue. The revised budget seemed to have strong support at the meeting, but it failed to pass in any of the eight RSU 20 municipalities, including Belfast.

In Searsport, on Monday night, the turnout was smaller but included more voters from towns that have been outspoken in favor of keeping taxes low. The motions to cut from, rather than add to, the 11 cost centers of the district's budget generally followed suit.

Voters cut $291,127 from the $12 million cost center for regular instruction. The amendment targeted $150,000 for art teacher positions, $100,000 for supplies and $41,127 for the district's portion of the School Resource Officer's salary.

The proposed cuts to art faculty and elimination of the SRO drew a strong backlash in May, but went through by a vote of 59-55 on Monday.

The remaining $72,436 in cuts came from stipends for leaders of middle school extra and co-curricular activities — a  category that includes athletic coaches, and theater and music directors. Like the art teachers and SRO before, the activity stipends got enough support at the May budget meeting that the board preemptively restored funding in its newest draft budget in the belief that the lines would be voted back in if they were left out.

Like the art teachers and SRO, the stipends were also voted out, 68-56.

Library ed techs were kept in the budget but not without significant debate. The 3.5 full time equivalent positions have been on the chopping block enough times this year that Belfast Area High School Librarian Roxanna Morse prefaced her comments on Monday saying she felt like she and her co-workers had "made it to the semi-finals again."

Dee Reid of Northport advocated for replacing the positions with community mentors or parent volunteers. The recommendation was similar to an earlier recommendation by Reid to replace multiple art teacher positions with a single volunteer coordinator. "We are an arts community," she said. "Where are our volunteers?"

Jody Henderson, principal of Captain Albert Stevens Elementary School in Belfast said parent volunteers already do a significant amount of work in the school libraries. Having one ed tech to keep track of the catalogs of libraries in multiple schools was worth the money, she said.

RSU 20 board member Dean Anderson of Belfast noted that eliminating one position could have a ripple effect because of the seniority system among teachers. If the library ed tech had seniority, another untenured ed tech might be the one to lose his or her job instead. As a result the original library ed tech might be moved to another position, displacing another worker, and so on. BettyLu Brown of The Education Association by the Bay — the RSU 20 teachers' union — later confirmed the scenario Anderson described.   

"You eliminate the position, not the person," she said.

A motion was made to eliminate the funding for the library ed techs. That motion failed but was followed by another to cut $100,000. This too failed and the budget line was approved with the positions by a vote of 84-35.

Funding that was restored by the board for two secretary positions, at Captain Albert Stevens School and Troy Howard Middle School in Belfast, weathered a motion by Jeff Davis of Stockton Springs to cut it from the budget.

Several district staff members advocated that the positions were necessary. Among them was Brown, who in response to a criticism from board member Sharon Catus of Stockton Springs that Searsport Elementary School has one secretary to serve the same number of students as the two secretaries at CASS, recommended adding $42,000 in funding for another secretary in Searsport. Board member Denise Dakin of Stockton Springs made a motion to do just that, but it was defeated, 56-60.

The article passed as written, which included the two secetary positions. All other articles on the warrant also passed as written.

The new $33.46 bottom line, including $363,563 in cuts approved Monday night, passed by a nearly 3-to-1 margin.

The figure sits between the extremes of the debate so far. Whether it holds at the polls remains to be seen. 

A number of town officials expressed disbelief at how few of their residents came to the meeting. Swanville had three registered voters in attendance. Two of them were the town's ballot clerks. Belmont also had three voters present Monday. Searsmont had six, Morrill 10, Searsport 17, Northport 20 and Stockton Springs 28.

A count Belfast voters was not immediately available. Based on vote tallies, around 36 city voters were on hand.

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Ethan Andrews can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com