Waterville Schools: Cutting budget difficult

Morning Sentinel, April 3, 2007

(excerpt) School officials on Monday night struggled with a proposed budget for 2007-08 after being asked by City Manager Michael J. Roy to cut another $388,654 from the plan.

The proposed $19.8 million budget represents an 8 percent increase over the current school budget, with fixed costs such as fuel, salaries and insurance to blame for the hike.

Superintendent Eric L. Haley told the Board of Education that the state estimates the school system will get $975,000 in state aid for 2007-08 -- a figure that is less than expected.

"It's not what I hoped it would be, even though it's $975,000," Haley said.

Haley had recently presented the board with three different scenarios, showing what the proposed budget would look like if Waterville received $1.2 million, $1.5 million and $1.7 million from the state. Waterville schools received $1.7 million from the state last year.

Roy said the city wants to cut a half mill, or 50 cents per $1,000 of property valuation, from the current tax rate of $25.90 per $1,000 worth of valuation. In order to do that, schools would have to cut $388,654. He said next year the city will borrow money and it wants to show it has established a pattern of reducing the tax rate each year so as to get a favorable bond rating. Last year, the city reduced the tax rate by one mill.