The proposed School Administrative District 28 and Five Town CSD 2013-14 budgets will be presented on Tuesday, May 28, at meetings to be held in Strom Auditorium, at the Camden Hills Regional High School in Rockport. These meetings are the final opportunity for public discussion of these budgets.

The SAD 28 and CSD boards of directors, schools administrators and staff have worked hard under difficult circumstances to arrive at the budgets being presented. Were it not for additional burdens placed upon SAD 28 by the State ($300,000+), that budget would place no additional burden on Camden and Rockport taxpayers (proposed operating budget change: +0.41 percent).

The outcome at the CSD is not, unfortunately, as favorable as that at SAD 28. The proposed CSD budget is up by 2.15 percent ... a commendable achievement, but obviously not as favorable as the outcome in the SAD. The tax revenue required to fund this CSD budget increases by 2.81 percent or $262,997 of which the impact of state funding changes is only a net decrease in state funds of $21,241. Thus the bulk of the increase in taxes required results from CSD cost increases.

Returning now to the proposed SAD 28 budget: For some time, Citizens for Value In Education (VIE) has advocated that the schools need to find new ways of more effectively delivering 21st-Century education such that our students receive the best possible education at the lowest possible cost.

At SAD 28, the proposed 2013-14 budget includes just such innovation. Specifically, the changes to the configuration of the health curriculum in this proposed budget will save $60,000 and, it is believed, deliver a better product. Survey data from a recent State Health Youth Survey and one by Five Towns Communities That Care suggest that the present curriculum is not as effective as it might be. In addition, there is unnecessary overlap among parts of that curriculum. It is believed that the reconfigured curriculum will have less overlap, be more integrated, and deliver a better product more efficiently at lower cost. To VIE that sounds like a "win-win" situation.

Change in any environment, not the least of them being schools, is never easy. There are those who apparently think that this change in the SAD 28 health curriculum is not a good idea. Those folks have suggested that the present curriculum delivery model should be retained and the $60,000 saving not be realized. In other words, they would prefer to add another $60,000 to taxpayers' burden despite the ability of the school to more efficiently deliver this content. That would increase the new funds required to fund the SAD 28 2013-14 budget by 20 percent.

It needs to be pointed out that even if $60,000 were to be added to the 2013-14 SAD 28 budget, the positions eliminated as a consequence of the altered health curriculum would not be restored for 2013-14. The reason: school budgets and contractual decisions follow separate tracks. At a recent SAD 28 school board meeting the board voted to eliminate the health position in question for the coming fiscal year. So, were the SAD 28 budget to be increased by $60,000 the funds would not go to restoring the present health curriculum configuration.

This budget meeting would be a perfect time to provide visible support for innovation in the delivery of education and for the efforts of all those involved in crafting this SAD 28 budget.

Alexander Armentrout, of Rockport, represents Citizens for Value In Education