See the recent FY2025 Superintendent Budget Presentation HERE

See some responses to the Budget Presentation HERE.

NEXT STEPS: Please attend a meeting - Virtually or In Person - our presence really makes a difference!

• (Much of this information is from Lara Rosen at the Rowe school. Thank you Lara and all helping to organize all this.).

• The Finance Committee passed the budget by a 3-1 vote (with Opperman voting no). Overall, it ended up MUCH BETTER than we anticipated! Below are the 17 positions that were added back into the budget as well as the positions from Emily Fidgor's amendments that were not included. 

• Board Member Figdor may look for support among other (non-Finance Committee) members to put forth another amendment to add a Director of STEM to the elementary and secondary network teams, so we don’t lose the district’s six year investment in STEM, as well as several other positions. 

  • Positions added to the budget by the Finance Committee (17 FTE):

    2 Title 1 teachers

    2 Title 1 ed techs

    1 additional teacher

    3 special educ ed techs

    Experiential Learning Teacher Leader

    Tech Integration Coordinator

    Make It Happen Middle School Lead (.5 FTE)

    Special Education Transition Coordinator

    Multilingual Transition Coordinator (.5 FTE)

    Clinical Coach

    Extended Learning Opportunities (PHS & DHS) - Yay, Andrea!

    MaineCare Reimbursement Lead

    Redistricting & New Start Times Lead

    Next Steps for Advocates:

    • School Board Meetings 

      • Tuesday, April 9 -  1st Reading of Updated Proposed Budget & Public Hearing ***with Full Board Vote***

      • 6:00-8:00 pm 

      • Casco Bay High School or via Zoom 

      • Note that while the opportunity for amendments is now a little more difficult, it will still be important for those who can to show up and indicate support for the budget passed by the Finance Committee. And if there are any other positions you feel strongly about putting back in, feel free to include those in your comments. From a revenue perspective, it's notable that the Board is only including $300K in MaineCare reimbursements, which is a conservative assumption.   

• Email your elected representatives

• Let the school board and city council know that:

• Our schools need more resources, not less

• Local property taxes can and should be increased to pay for it, and existing property tax relief programs could be expanded to further protect low and middle income homeowners and renters 

• Push for additional, creative ways of pulling in more revenue (even if it's not possible for this school budget - that could help for future years!)

  School board contact information

• City council and mayor contact information 

• Let your state representatives know that we need a more equitable school funding formula that does not rely so heavily on property tax valuation. And/or we need additional state revenue to support other city services so that the city has more flexibility in its resource allocation. 

• You can look up your state rep and senator by address here.

• Tell your friends! Can you ask 3-5 people you know to engage in this process in one of the ways above and/or become part of this group? We'd love to engage with folks who are connected to all of the schools (also happy to get translations of materials and brainstorm ways to support more accessible and equitable engagement).