OXFORD — School Superintendent Rick Colpitts said that until the state reveals its mill rate expectation, it is hard to estimate the financial impact of the required minimum local share of educational costs that he and others say have placed too great a burden on taxpayers.

“The waiver is gone, and we are now in the first year of a three-year ramp up to 100 percent local share,” Colpitts said of the essential programs and services model the state has used since 2004 to calculate how much money each school district needs to spend to provide an adequate education.

The state uses property values and other factors to determine how much each community should contribute to the EPS amount, and a state subsidy covers the rest.

SAD 17 and other a few other school districts were under a waiver from the 100 percent compliance with the EPS funding mandate until June 2013. Officials had argued in part that the state was not fulfilling its 55 percent funding obligation for education.

As the deadline for full compliance approached, Colpitts and others met with the Legislature’s Education Committee last March to ask that the district be excused from fully funding their local share for education.

That effort failed and SAD 17 now has three years to “ramp up” to the 100 percent EPS compliance.

“We are waiting on Augusta,” Colpitts said of the mill rate expectation that should be available sometime in late February.

While school officials wait for those numbers, budgeting for fiscal year 2015, which runs from July 1, 2014, through June 30, 2015, continues. Colpitts said he will be reviewing budget requests from “cost centers” over the next four weeks.

Cost centers are the various departments, such as facilities, health insurance, etc., that impact the development of a new budget. The Budget Committee will begin its review of those numbers near the end of February.

Sometime in March, the School Board is expected to meet with town officials from each of the eight district towns and then in the following weeks with residents of the towns to review the proposed budget. SAD 17’s Board of Directors will then vote on the recommended budget and present it to voters in each of the eight towns for approval in June.

Last year, voters approved a $35.9 million budget, a 2.23 percent increase from the 2012-13 budget.

The budget was about $783,000 more than the previous years and included several personnel and other cuts. Expenditures in that budget included $419,000 for the district’s share of teacher retirement, $350,000 in negotiated salary increases and $438,000 in health insurance increases.

Every town in the district saw an increase in its local assessment, ranging from a 4.22 percent increase in Waterford to a 10.35 percent increase in Otisfield.

School officials say they have been able to keep the impact of education costs on taxes down by carrying over about $1 million in contingency funds each year and by implementing a spending freeze each fall.

In addition to the EPS impact figures, SAD 17 officials also await the potential financial impact of four new proposed charter schools. Under current law, the per-pupil state funding follows each charter school student who leaves the district.

Several months ago, SAD 17 received a $7,424 tuition bill for one student who chose to attend the Fiddlehead School of Arts & Sciences in Gray this school year.

ldixon@sunjournal.com

Harrison projects education costs

HARRISON — The impact of meeting full EPS compliance could amount to more than $250,000 for Harrison taxpayers in the next few years, Town Manager George “Bud” Finch said.

With the loss of a waiver from the state, SAD 17 must now begin picking up 100 percent of the required educational funding in the next three years, meaning each of the district’s eight towns will pay a higher share of the costs.

Finch, who has already released a draft budget for fiscal 2015, said he has budgeted a 4.5 percent increase in the education portion of Harrison’s new budget. In Harrison, the education budget accounts for 66 percent of property taxes raised.

The increase will amount to an additional $168,369, for a total $3,909,899 for education costs this coming fiscal year. The number could change as more firm figures become available from the district and state in the next few months.

Finch said the education costs represent a “best guess” based on statistical data from the past five years as well as a “best guess” on what the district and state will do.

Each year, the EPS impact on most local towns changes depending on the state’s valuation of property. The valuation number is based on a two-year-old number.

Last year, for example, the increases in local assessments for the eight towns in the SAD 17 district ranged from from $661 in Oxford to $278,267 in Norway. Norway carried the highest percentage of the local share last year because the state valuation of Norway property went up and it was “assumed” they could afford to pay more, said local officials at the time.

Unlike the other seven towns in the SAD 17 district, Harrison is considered a minimal receiver because their property assessment, as set by the state, is so much higher than the other seven district towns.

Waterford is coming closer to the same threshold for being a minimal receiver, SAD 17 Business Manager Cathy Fanjoy Coffey said.

Like Harrison and Waterford, Otisfield also shares a high percentage of waterfront — and therefore more highly assessed — property. Together, the three towns pay about 43 percent of the SAD 17 budget, Finch said. Norway, Paris and Oxford pay about 50 percent with the remainder being paid by West Paris and Hebron taxpayers.

Harrison property owners pay about 22 percent of the school budget for 10 percent of the students, Finch said. This means Harrison property owners pay about $10,500 per student, while some other towns in the district pay around $4,500 per student.

The Maine Department of Education calculates the average elementary per pupil cost statewide for the fiscal year 2013-2014 is $6,415 and $6,859 for secondary level.

“Increases driven by the requirement to have communities pay more for education, while getting less from the state, will impact some district towns far greater than Harrison,” Finch said.

Finch said budgeting for education can be a frustrating exercise.

“Projecting what the state will do with the EPS is more difficult than predicting the weather in Maine,” Finch said. “If the state doesn’t fund its 55 percent requirement, how can they expect to implement the 100 percent compliance with EPS?

“The question in Harrison is not about if schools have enough money as it is about fairness and the reality that there is a limit to how much money is available,” he said.

ldixon@sunjournal.com