FARMINGTON – Voters of Regional School Unit 9 district’s 10 towns will go to the polls Tuesday, June 8, to cast ballots on the proposed $38.9 million budget to fund the district through the next fiscal year. The budget, which was preliminarily approved by the school board in April, would be funded in part through $13.7 million in locally assessed money.
If approved as proposed, the general fund budget for RSU 9 in 2021-22 would be $38,860,510, representing an increase of $673,585, or 1.76 percent above the current fiscal year’s budget. Adult Education’s budget, which is funded through a second article on the June 8 warrant, is proposed at $477,406, slightly more than the current $465,972.
State funding for the budget is expected to decrease by $465,000, due to subsidy reductions and unused bond funding from the high school project being backed out of the state figures. As proposed, taxpayers in RSU 9 would be contributing $13.7 million, up approximately $400,000 from the previous fiscal year, or 2.99 percent.
Specifically, Chesterville would see an increase of 2.89 percent, or $29,385; Farmington would see an increase of 2.91 percent, or $135,154; Industry would see an increase of $39,624, or 4.23 percent; New Sharon would see an increase of 3.61 percent, or $37,618; New Vineyard would see an increase of 5.06 percent, or $39,194; Starks would see an increase of 6.55 percent, or $32,926; Temple would see an increase of 6.05 percent, or $25,840; Vienna would see an increase of 2.15 percent, or $15,684; Weld would see an increase of 4.35 percent, or $20,470; and Wilton would see an increase of 0.78 percent, or $21,406.
The Regular Instruction line item includes the largest increase in the overall budget at $500,000, or 4.7 percent. Special Education, if approved as proposed, would increase by 11.10 percent over the current fiscal year budget, or $7.2 million. That increase includes two new teaching positions in Adaptive Skills and changes in Ed Tech positions.
Adult Education, which is a separate budget and funded via the second article in the warrant, is being proposed to voters at $477,406. A total of $223,453 would be raised locally.
While the first two articles deal with the school budget directly, Article 3 would authorize the school board to use additional state subsidy, should the district receive any, and Article 4 would enable the board to transfer amounts of money between cost centers, capped at 5 percent of the center’s appropriation, presuming the transfer didn’t increase the total budget.
As was the case last year, there was no district-wide budget meeting. Instead, the board set a preliminary budget and a public hearing was held in late May.
Poll times for the June 8 vote are:
Chesterville – 12 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Industry – 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.
New Vineyard – 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Temple – 1 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Weld – 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Farmington – 12 p.m. to 7 p.m.
New Sharon – 12 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Starks – 12 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Vienna – 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Wilton – 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
