City budget up 3 percent

SOUTH PORTLAND — Based largely on hikes in school spending, and initial payments on the high school renovation project, South Portland’s budget for the next fiscal year is expected to jump $2.01 million, or 3 percent, to a new high of $71.37 million.

The proposed budget breaks down to $28.45 million in municipal spending (up $365,963), $38.87 million for public education (up $800,121), $2.08 million for the Cumberland County tax bill (up $2,707) and $1.98 million for the high school renovation project, including $525,000 for the first bond payment and $1.45 million placed in reserve to mitigate the impact on taxes of future payments.

On the school side, that would still cause the elimination of 16 positions, after federal funds used this year to plug a budget gap have run out.

According to City Manager Jim Gailey, South Portland would need to collect $55.3 million from taxes, based on revenue estimates. That’s $1.25 million, or 2.31 percent, more than last year. Assuming total property valuation holds steady at $3.36 billion by the April 1 commitment date, the proposed budget will push the property tax rate up 37 cents, to $16.47 per $1,000 of property valuation.

According to City Assessor Elizabeth Sawyer, the median assessment of a single-family home in South Portland is $195,000. That means the average homeowner can expect to pay an extra $72.15 in taxes this year, if the spending proposals survive the budget process.

“The economic times have presented a number of challenges, which we are still feeling the effects from,” wrote Gailey in a March 19 report to the City Council, which began reviewing the budget in workshop Monday. “Even having the ability to increase the budget, very difficult decisions had to be made by the administration throughout the budget process.”

On the school side, Superintendent Suzanne Godin initially presented a “zero-based” budget that would have held the tax rate stead year-to-year. However, even though the state education subsidy jumped $980,000, temporary funds from federal sources that in this year’s budget totaled $1.6 million will be gone next year.

That and other increases, primarily in contracted salary increases, meant the district would have to cut, or not fill, 16 positions in order to leave local tax bills unchanged.

Instead, Godin is recommending a 2.2 percent increase, which either retains or relocates the positions that might have been cut. For example, the Kaler school will still lose some teachers based on enrollment.

At the recommend increase, the only “needs-based” items left off the spending plan, Godin said, are $250,000 in maintenance, $40,000 in professional development, $11,000 for new high school textbooks and $250,000 to expand the preschool program at Kaler.

At its most recent meeting, the majority of the school board backed Godin’s proposed increase.

“I do not think a zero percent budget, based on the needs South Portland right now, and the needs of our students, is fiscally responsible,” said school board Chairman Tappan Fitzgerald.

“Zero percent isn’t realistic,” agreed school board member James Gilboy.

Only board member Sara Goldberg appeared disinclined to join the consensus.

“We are in a bad economy still, so 2.2 [percent increase] still seems to me a little scary,” she said. “There are a lot of people out there who cannot afford to pay their taxes in this city. That greatly concerns me.”

However, Richard Matthews took the opposite view, stumping for more an increase of even greater than the recommended amount.

“We have [practically] nothing in this budget for maintenance,” he said.

Uncharted waters: Boat-building project launches students on course to personal success

SOUTH PORTLAND — At the Compass Project workshop on Anderson Street in Portland, students from the alternative education class at South Portland High School clustered around the sailboat they’re building, while senior Zach DiRenzo leaned over a workbench off to one side.

For the past hour, he’d been working one-on-one with Compass volunteer Jon Bickford to shape pieces of ribbing. Now, as the time came to start making cuts, the mentoring session turned into an impromptu lesson on fractions.

Bickford, 23, a recent graduate of the University of Maryland, has a background in carpentry, and he patiently walked DiRenzo through the necessary calculations. It only took a little prompting before the heavily tattooed 18-year-old offered up the right number, along with an explanation of how he figured it out.

Asked what he’s learning – Compass’ goal, after all, is to bring science, technology, engineering and math training to students who may be at risk of failure in the conventional classroom ­– DiRenzo couldn’t suppress a sly grin.

“Survival skills,” he said, “in case we have a zombie apocalypse.”

But DiRenzo is quick with an apologetic, only-kidding smile. The boat-building project is more than an excuse to get out of school for the afternoon, he said. It’s a way to learn practical skills that, for whatever reason, just don’t seem to stick in the usual theoretical setting. And the project, which is in its second year, has been so successful at putting at-risk students back on track that it is being extended to another alternative education class in South Portland.

“Personally, hands-on is way easier,” DiRenzo said. “When you have something to actually do, and someone to help you, it’s way easier.”

Darren Cook, one of two teachers in South Portland’s alternative education class – dubbed the One Classroom Project because it houses 22 students in grades 9-12 in a one-room, satellite building behind the high school – said if there’s one thing the Compass Project has taught him, it’s that students wind up in his room for all kinds of reasons, few of which have anything to do with an unwillingness to learn. 

Bickford agrees.

“It means a lot to me to come in and see these students work hard each day,” he said. “A lot of them come from very difficult situations, and to see them come in with their spirit and work ethic is just amazing to see. I learn as much from them on my own journey through life.”

The One Classroom Project built its first Bevin’s skiff for Compass last year. That experience was so successfully, it was extended to an additional alternative education math class. Meanwhile, Cook’s students have come back this year to build the largest boat ever attempted in the 10-year history of the Compass Project – a 17-foot-long, double-mast sailboat slated for launch in late May.

“An individual approached us interested in this particular design. Essentially, he’s commissioning the students to build it for him,” said Shane Hall, Compass Program supervisor. “So, even more than our usual project, this is very much a real-world situation.”

Compass, which joined Portland-based Spurwink Services in 2010, conducts boat-building workshops for several area high schools, including Gorham and Falmouth, in addition to South Portland.

“Schools tell us they see improved attendance among kids who participate in our program,” said Hall. “A lot of students become disinterested in school because they don’t think they’re going to succeed because they haven’t succeeded, and so they just drop out. But what we do here keeps those at-risk students engaged, on track to education and, which is our primary goal, out of the juvenile justice system.”

Cook said the One Classroom Project is a “last alternative” for students at South Portland High School. “They’ll try anything else before they send students to us,” he said.

And while many of the students have behavioral and anger issues, learning disabilities, and rough backgrounds, the common denominator is a lack of confidence. Compass, he said, gives those students a sense of accomplishment, along with a tangible product that stands – or, more correctly, floats – as proof of what they can do.

“It’s great to see them progress,” Compass shop manager Jodi Carpenter said. “I’ve worked with these kids for two years now and it’s great to see them progress. They’ve developed skills and have a lot more confidence. I’ve seen a lot of them raise to be leaders and help the kids who are new this year.”

One of the repeat builders is Travis Crager, an 18-year-old junior who ended his freshman year with zero credits.

“Without the One Classroom Project, and Compass, I probably would have dropped out,” he said, detailing a “ridiculous soap opera” home life fraught with divorce, death and depression. “With all that going on, along with trying to juggle school work and having to work 30 hours a week, it was kind of too much to handle.”

Like DiRenzo, Crager describes himself as a “hands-on learner.” Sitting through a lecture just wasn’t his thing.

“I can’t be pinned down in a classroom for five to six hours a day. I slowly go insane,” he said.

That’s why Crager has thrived in the One Classroom project, Cook said. Although it may seem counter-intuitive, the looser atmosphere, Crager said, actually helps him to focus.

“A lot of people think that kids who come to this program are druggies and scumbags,” he said. “Every once in a while, we do get a student or two look like that. But if you look around, we’re not at all like that” he said, waving across the Compass workshop, where students deemed to be disruptive and uncooperative are working together in teams toward a common goal. “We’ve all had our bumps and bruises, but everyone here is working, they’re all trying. No one’s arguing. No one’s fighting. It’s just a comfortable environment.”

Part of that, said Crager, is because of the volunteers who give their own time to assist Compass’ small staff and South Portland’s four teachers and educational technicians, all of whom are on a first-name basis with the students. Just as DiRenzo bonded with Bickford, Crager said he’s built a relationship with two older volunteers.

“They’re retired,” said Crager. “They come in on their own free time to help us out. They definitely don’t have to. So, it means a lot.”

It’s that personal touch that makes the difference, Crager said.

“It’s nice to work with people I know and can rely on,” he said. “The teachers and the volunteers care about the teachers here. A lot of the students care about the teachers and volunteers. Some students don’t like [One Classroom] because they were forced to go, but I’m doing so well in school now that I’ve been asked to go back to the regular high school, to make room here for another student.”

Asked how he feels about that, Crager is cautious.

“I don’t know,” he said, with a laugh.

Still, DiRenzo said, if he had his way, all South Portland students would get time in the Compass workshop, if not necessarily in the One Classroom building. As Cook points out, the project is about a lot more than building a boat and hoping it floats. There’s math, physics and engineering involved, as well as economics, as the students try to work through a budget.

What’s more, Cook said, the students are, in a lot of ways, actually ahead of their peers stuck in a common core rut toward post-secondary degrees. Already, they are doing what some students won’t do until they leave college – learning to work together on matters that have real consequence, because there’s a customer on the other end waiting on the finished result.

Carpenter points out that some students who have gone through the Compass program have won jobs in Maine’s boatbuilding industry, but all, said Hall, are learning lessons to last a lifetime.

“If I was hiring someone,” said Cook,” I think I’d take almost any one of these kids from the One Classroom Project over someone who’s only ever sat in a classroom.”

Cleaning house: Scarborough schools to explore outsourcing custodial services

SCARBOROUGH — As it heads into what town officials concede will be a tough budget year, the Scarborough School Department is looking to save money by outsourcing custodial services at its six buildings – a move the local union promises to oppose.

On March 13, the department issued a request seeking cleaning companies capable of taking on the 612,631 square feet of space now maintained by an in-house staff of 30, a little more than half of whom are full-time employees.

“It was kind of out of the blue, wondering what was going on, and why we didn’t know anything about it,” high school custodian Josh Collins said on Tuesday.

The move comes as the janitors’ union is at the end of a three-year contract and beginning negotiations with the school district on its next deal. According to Collins, now in his third year with the district and part of the negotiating team for the union, neither he nor any of his peers had an inkling their jobs were on the chopping block – not until some saw the request notice in the newspaper.

“There was a lot of hurt,” he said. “It was nothing anyone would expect, to have the town going after your job like that.

“They’ve kind of threatened us with it for the past year and a half, saying, ‘We could just outsource you,’ but we always saw it as an empty threat to keep people motivated,” said Collins. “But it hadn’t been mentioned in a long time. We had pretty high hopes for a new contract. We certainly weren’t expecting this, especially so close to our first negotiating session.”

According to Facilities Director Todd Jepson, three firms – BSC Cleaning and UGL-Unicco, both of South Portland, and Benchmark Cleaning Services of Portland – met the March 26 deadline to submit evidence they can handle the job.

“Once we review the documents, we will then determine which firms will be allowed to respond to our [Request for Proposal], which will be sent out to the qualified firms in the coming weeks,” Jepson said Monday afternoon.

Spending in Scarborough’s next school budget, the first submitted by new Superintendent George Entwistle III, is up $3.52 million (9.86 percent) to $39.17 million. Increased teacher salaries (up $713,773), combined with the loss of $1.13 million in stimulus money from the feds, leaves the district still reeling from recent job cuts looking for any way to rein in the bottom line.

“I think that in this time, when we are trying to protect every dollar that we can and keep it in the classroom, we would be remiss if we did not look at all aspects of the operation we run to see if there are more creative and/or alternative ways to run those more efficiently,” said Entwistle said in a March 21 interview.

Collins said custodians harbor no ill will toward teachers. Instead, it’s administrators who they say are bleeding the budget.

“We’re the lowest earners, we’re the bottom of the totem pole. It’s like going after the little guy just to save a couple of bucks,” he said. “I think a lot of negative feelings right now, honestly, comes from the raises that administrators got last year. It was 7 percent, after we were all told there was no money in the budget. Well, that’s a lot of money at their pay scale.”

Last year, two vacant custodian jobs were cut to save money.

“When we lost those positions last year, it was tough, especially at the high school,” said Collins. “We made it work, but it’s hard. People are really being stretched to get everything done and keep the schools looking nice.”

On Friday, Jepson said the district spends $1.1 million on salary and benefits for custodians, who average $14 per hour. After starting at $13.55 per hour, Scarborough school custodians can, after 24 years, earn a maximum of $16.55 per hour. The benefits package available after the first year of employment includes 80 percent coverage of health insurance premiums for both individual and family plans and 90 percent premium payment for dental, along with life insurance and Maine State Retirement coverage.

According to Jepson, the district feels a private contractor may be able to find efficiencies in hourly labor, in part because most cleaning companies train employees to specialize in specific tasks, while school custodians do a little bit of everything within an assigned area. At the very least, Jepson said, outside workers may not get health and retirement benefits as generous as what the school pays, if they get any at all, which would mean a bottom-line savings for taxpayers.

“We’re not pursuing this for reasons of incompetence,” said Jepson. “Our custodians do good work. It’s really a cost savings we’re trying to achieve.

“In the last two years, we eliminated almost 40 education positions,” said Jepson. “If we can save the school department from having to eliminate teacher jobs by getting better pricing on cleaning services, well, I would think the taxpayers would be more concerned with losing teachers than custodians.”

Jepson said the proposal does not include three maintenance workers who oversee plant maintenance, or the purchase of cleaning supplies, which he thinks the school can get just as cheaply on its own. All that’s on the table, he said, are the cleaning jobs.

But Crystal Goodrich, president of the Scarborough Education Association, said the union will not let those jobs go without a fight.

“We will work to block that kind of outsourcing,” she said on Monday.

Goodrich said school management is barred from adopting any outside contract without union approval. However, the contract covering custodians and food service workers says only that the school board “shall not enter into any agreements or contract with its employees” that “conflicts with, adds to, or subtracts from the terms” of the agreement. How attorneys might parse that language is unclear. While the district is not proposing to form a new agreement with employees – it wants to hire an outside firm and cut the employees loose – its proposal would certainly seem to “subtract from the terms” as they currently exist.

Still, Entwistle does not seem inclined to play hardball.

“This is a step-by-step process and our union representatives will need to be at the table with us,” he said.

Of course, the district’s negotiating team will need to meet with union reps anyway. The contract expires June 30.

Entwistle denies the district might take advantage of the June 30 expiration to simply dismiss custodians en masse. Because an outside contract is unlikely to be in place before the start of the new budget year July 1, Entwistle said, the district will negotiate a new contract with custodians in good faith. Any savings to be had from outsourcing “is certainly not going to be built into this budget,” he said.

“I can’t believe it would happen before the summer,” agreed Jepson. “But it may happen before the new school year starts. From a practical standpoint, that would be the ideal timing.”

If custodians are let go, they must be given 30 days notice, according to the contract, with part-timers first in line to get the boot.

How upcoming negotiations with the union might go remains to be seen. Entwistle said because the outsourcing proposal promises a reduction in force of some kind, the very idea “will almost certainly” figure into contract talks. However, Goodrich said, the union intends to pursue a new three-year deal as if no such thing is in the works.

“It should not impact negotiations that are happening now,” she said. “The negotiations will continue regardless of the outsourcing quote and, as we go forward, it would be the standard contract negotiation that we will follow.”

Still, Goodrich acknowledged the possibility that custodians and food service workers might start the next fiscal year working without a contract.

Only “about half” of the custodians, primarily the full-timers, are union members, said Jepson. Like Entwistle, he predicts the outsourcing plan will weigh heavily on contract talks.

“We may not decide after the RFP process to pursue outsourcing,” Jepson said. “If the numbers don’t come back looking like we can save money – and we need a good six-figure number in order to make it a go – I don’t guess we could use it as a negotiating piece. However, if we can save, maybe they would negotiate to try and preserve their contract.”

Again, Goodrich claims the district can’t do anything without union approval.

“We basically have the right to negotiate with the school before any kind of services are purchased from outside the school system,” she said.

But does that hold once the contract expires June 30?

“We certainly hope to have something in place by then,” she said. “We feel the school board has shown that they really value their employees and they want to treat them fairly. That’s what we hope for in these negotiations and as we go forward.”

Goodrich said there are potential drawbacks to outsourcing custodial work that could mitigate money saved. For one, the district could get what it pays for.

“You can get a lower rate, but you don’t know what you are going to get, or the quality of services,” she said.

There’s also a question of security.

“Our employees are very familiar to the community,” said Goodrich. “That makes a big difference, rather than having people in our schools no one knows.”

Jepson said he’s visited area schools that outsource all or part of their custodial work, including Gorham and Falmouth, and found “no difference” in cleanliness. Security, he said, is something interested firms will have to prove.

Meanwhile, Entwistle said the proposal does not necessarily mean all custodians in Scarborough will lose their jobs. He was superintendent in Falmouth when outside cleaners were first brought in under a “hybrid model,” in which local custodians tended to the smaller schools, while the contractor took on the larger buildings.

“I think what we will do is explore any and all combinations and opportunities,” he said. “We would not be responsible if we were not to explore ways to be more efficient and to direct more of our operating budget to education.”

“Right now, we’re just trying to determine if there are even firms out there willing to do what we want them to do at the level we want them to do it,” said Jepson. “I think the bottom line for me is, one of the main reasons we are doing this is to see if we can achieve an economy of scale for the town, so that tax dollars are spent for the school department wisely.”

On the union side, there’s hope that taxpayers, who’ve been vocal in opposing cuts to teaching positions, will prove just as protective of custodians.

“We hope school board members will all see the value of continuing to have their employees instead of some outside vendor,” said Goodrich. “The custodial staff is very vested in keeping their positions the way they are, and the benefits the way they are. They really value their jobs in the school system and they hope the community values them as well.”

“Honestly, I have high hopes,” said Collins, the janitor. “I love my job. I love the community. I live in town. My family’s been here for generations. To be let go would be a slap in the face, especially when I feel like I’ve personally done my best by going above and beyond my job description every day.”

‘Correction year’ forces higher taxes in Scarborough

SCARBOROUGH – Town Councilor Judith Roy may have made the most honest assessment of Scarborough’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year, presented March 21 by Town Manager Tom Hall.

“I choked a little,” she said.

That’s because gross spending is up 5.86 percent, to $64.2 million. Cumberland County taxes also are up 5 percent, to $2.06 million. On the town side, spending is up 1.69 percent to $23.02 million, while school spending is now pegged at $39.17 million, up a whopping 9.86 percent. Combined with shrinking revenue, these preliminary budgets mean Scarborough residents are staring down the barrel of a 10.86 percent increase in property taxes.

"We are, with a sense of urgency, moving to stop further deterioration of education quality at Scarborough schools," Superintendent George Entwistle III said during his March 15 presentation.

After estimated revenues are subtracted, Scarborough will need $51.78 million from taxpayers. That figure is up 11.29 percent from last year and will push the property tax rate, Hall said, to $14.44 per thousand dollars of property valuation – up $1.41 (10.872 percent).

Assuming a $15 million increase in property valuation, and a median property value of $300,00, the average taxpayer could expect to pay an extra $432, if nothing changes before the budgets are finalized.

However, the good news is that some things will change. At the very least, a planned restructuring of long-term debt, announced last week by Hall, could shave as much as $1.3 million off the $3.5 million hike in school spending. By paying off about $21 million in money borrowed at 4.33 percent interest with new bonds issued at 2.48 percent, Hall said Scarborough can absorb all payments on the $39.1 million Wentworth school project with zero impact to the tax rate.

“The bond sale is scheduled for April 18,” said Finance Director Ruth Porter. “So, by the time we finalize our budget, we will know what the actual savings are.”

Although the first payment on the Wentworth bond was expected to ring in at $1.3 million, Hall hedged on putting a dollar figure to impact on next year’s budget. The relief will be “significant” is all he would say.

Hall blamed the balance of the imminent tax hike largely on reduced revenues, totaling $409,475 on the town side and $1.18 million on the school side.

“The truth of the matter is, in the change in the distribution model to [state] revenue sharing, Scarborough is the single biggest loser,” said Hall, predicting a lost of $47,000. That particular change appears to have stalled in committee at the Legislature, meaning, Hall said, that “we may have side-stepped one bullet this year.”

“But that’s likely to be a challenge going forward,” said Hall. “The notion is that the wealthier the community, the higher its property values, the more it can afford locally.”

But if Scarborough residents are feeling wealthy, they are not being overly ostentatious about their wealth. Excise taxes, Hall said, have been budgeted at $65,000 less than last year, based on recent trends in car registration.

The lion’s share of the education loss comes from the expiration of a $1.13 million JOBS grant. In fact, the last three school budgets, Hall said, have been “plugged with artificial sources.” With the well now dry on temporary stimulus funds from the feds, Hall said 2013 will be a “correction year” for Scarborough taxpayers.

“This is not a new story,” he said. “We’ve known it’s coming. At the same time we’ve increased expenses we’re also seeing decreases revenues. That means a lot of this year needs to be picked up locally, or we need to choose to modify what our spending priorities are.”

The public will have several chances to sway town councilors on those priorities, primarily at a public hearing April 11 and a special workshop session on Saturday, April 25. That session, something new in Scarborough, will feature councilors and school board members sitting down together at one table.

“This will happen after the finance committee has completed its review and has its recommendations,” said Hall.

Things that could get kicked out of the budget either before or at that meeting include a $288,000 bathhouse at Higgins Beach. Although it promises to alleviate complaints from beachfront residents of public nudity (because surfers and beachgoers have no place to change) the bathhouse was pulled from the budget late in last year’s deliberations.

The budget also includes $165,500 for new boilers at town hall, where two of the five units installed in 1992 are now permanently offline. According to Councilor Judy Roy, who serves as liaison to the town energy committee, a local resident has lined up investors willing to pay for construction of a tri-generation machine that would generate both heat and electricity from the natural gas line into town hall. Dunstan Corner improvements ($400,000), road paving ($483,000) and Fogg Road repairs ($230,000) help contribute to $1.6 million in planned capital improvement projects.

In the school department, Entwitle said he is trying to restore cuts made in recent years as growing budgets did not keep pace with perceived needs, even in the face of millions in federal assistance. In the last two years, the school department cut 42 full-time equivalent jobs, although many of the cuts amounted to the elimination of vacant slots.

"You can't make that kind of a reduction and expect no impact," he said.

The double-digit spending hike, said Entwistle, is designed to reverse what he called a  "pattern of under-funding.” Although $1.1 million of the spending hike will go to salary hikes agreed to be the school board’s negotiating team, Entwistle said about a third of the requested increase for next year is aimed at restoring foreign language classes at the elementary level and stimulating the district’s STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) curriculum.