District 63 approves scaled back spending plan

Maine East Elementary District 63 expects to spend about $42.9 million in the 2011-2012 fiscal year, or about $1.6 million less than it expects in revenue, according to David Bein, the executive director of business services.

Bein presented the district’s tentative budget at the District 63 school board meeting Wednesday, Aug. 3. The board approved the tentative budget unanimously. It is now available for public review, and it will be the subject of a public hearing before a final vote at the Sept. 7 school board meeting.
There would not be any surplus without the cost-cutting measures the district undertook earlier this year, eliminating literary specialists, social workers, gifted instructors, speech language pathologists and technology integration staff, while raising class sizes to trim the number of teachers the district employs, Bein said.

Earlier:

The district is now projecting to have stable fund balances for the next four years, but Superintendent Scott Clay said it’s too soon to relax.

“Our plan is to continue to monitor things and to look at ways to continue to spend less money,” Clay said.

Board members said they are glad to have the big cuts that were made this year behind them.

“We don’t have to sit here next year, hopefully, and look at what we have to cut,” board member Walter Gluzkin said. “If we had waited another year, it would have been a lot more painful.”

As in most suburban school districts, more than three-quarters of the projected revenue comes from local sources, primarily property taxes, Bein said. While projected local revenue comes in at more than $36 million, projected state revenue is at about $5.8 million and projected federal revenue is at about $2.2 million.

How much money the district will get from the state remains an open question, Bein said.

“We really don’t know how much the state can actually pay,” Bein said. “Regardless of what they budgeted, if they don’t have the money, they can’t pay the bills.”

The district has taken steps to raise fees to cover the costs of some programs, Bein said, but those increases don’t make much of an impact compared to the amount of money raised by property taxes.

On the expenditure side, most of the money – about $29.9 million – is projected to be spent on salaries and benefits. That number is slighty lower than last year because of reductions in staffing.

The numbers could change between now and Sept. 7, Bein said, especially if registration numbers come in higher than expected or if the district finds out the state will not pay as much as it allocated.

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