BUCKFIELD — With concern mounting over escalating budgets in SAD 39, the Buckfield Board of Selectmen has decided to call a special meeting so they can attend a regularly scheduled meeting of the Sumner Board of Selectmen. That meeting will be held at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, February 24, at the Bisbee-Dyer Municipal Center in Sumner.
Both SAD 39 Superintendent William Shuttleworth and Maine Commissioner of Education Susan Gendron will be in attendance to answer questions from selectmen and the public regarding education costs.
"I think all of us that possibly can, should attend that," said Buckfield Selectman Oscar Gammon. "I would hope that the school board would be there too, but I think that it's important that the selectmen show up to these meetings."
Buckfield Town Manager Cynthia Dunn plans to post a public notice of the meeting because state law in MRSA Title-1, Chapter 13 dictates that such notice be given "if proceedings are a meeting of a body or agency consisting of three or more persons."
According to Dunn, as all three of Buckfield's selectmen — Lawrence "Skip" Stanley, Joanne Bly, and Gammon — plan to attend the Sumner selectmen's meeting, that constitutes a special meeting of the Buckfield board.
The agenda for the Sumner meeting stems directly from a December 30, 2003, letter sent to Shuttleworth by the Sumner selectmen.
That letter read, in part, "We believe that our school budget must reflect the financial realities of our towns. Therefore, we request that you hold the school budget to its present level for at least the next three years."
A copy of this letter was sent to the Buckfield selectmen, along with a request that they sign their copy and forward it to the school district.
"This letter will be more effective if it is submitted by all three towns in SAD 39," and accompanying letter addressed directly to the Buckfield selectmen said.
At their regular meeting of January 6, the Buckfield selectmen considered both letters and declined to sign the one addressed to the school district.
Selectman Bly commented at the time that the actions of the Sumner board were "inappropriate" given that they had not consulted with the Buckfield selectmen before printing and distributing the letters.
Superintendent Shuttleworth was in attendance at the January 6 meeting of the Buckfield selectmen, just as he had also recently attended a meeting of the Sumner selectmen in response to the letter they were circulating. He commented that the SAD 39 budget was already "bare-bones — to a point were it is interfering with the quality of education."
He also cited statistics showing that SAD 39's annual per pupil cost to be $600 below the state average and that, despite this, SAD 39 currently ranks within the Top 10 percent in school performance in the state of Maine.
Shuttleworth further started that a three-year cap on spending would be virtually impossible because the upcoming budget will include at least a $253,000 increase in obligations, including teacher's contracts, as well as increases in the costs of liability insurance, health insurance, and heating oil.
Suttleworth laid the blame for SAD 39's perennial budget increases squarely on the state legislature.
"The state is currently only paying 44 percent of its 55 percent school funding obligation," he said. "If the state paid 55 percent, SAD 39 budgets would have only slight increases, if any."
Gammon agreed that the voters of Maine, "need to take all necessary steps" in mandating that the state meet its 55 percent funding obligation to the school districts.
However, Chairman Stanley appeared less sympathetic, while agreeing that the three-year freeze on any budget increase, as requested by the Sumner selectmen, was "probably unrealistic," he did decline to allow Shuttleworth a free pass on personal culpability for increasing budgets.
"The [school] district needs to be aware that it is being watched by the selectmen and the people of the community," he asserted. "The selectmen are always looking at ways to cut as much as possible from the budget and still maintain an appropriate level of service. The district needs to make the same good faith effort.
"Buckfield realizes that the [school] district's hands are tied when it comes to mandated costs," he continued. "However, I strongly believe the district can look at other areas for possible budget reductions. The people are up to their necks with taxes."
With neither the selectmen of Sumner nor Buckfield fully satisfied with the results of their respective meetings with Shuttleworth, the Sumner selectmen — including Clifford McNeil, Tom Standard and Chairman Mark Silber — began looking for other outlets at which to vent their frustrations. It was decided that, if possible, a meeting with Maine Commissioner of Education Susan Gendron should be sought.
Silber explained Sumner's reasons for seeing the meeting:
"The purpose of the meeting is to explain why we wrote the letter asking for a stasis of funding in education. In other words, we don't want it to go up in the next couple of years because we as a town are feeling an incredibly high burden. Because [of this] we can't maintain roads. We don't have a tax base.
"We just want to explain to her connections between high educational budgets, mandates that the state puts on towns and school districts, and the connection between that and local taxes."
Whether the reasons for the spiraling costs of SAD 39 lay with the towns, the school administrators, or the state, Buckfield's selectmen hope to get some answers by attending the upcoming meeting in Sumner.
Despite declining to sign the letter Sumner's selectmen circulated asking for a three-year budget freeze, Chairman Stanley said, "I appreciate their frustration and understand where they are going."
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