NEWPORT, Maine — In just his seventh week on the job, new Regional School Unit 19 Superintendent Greg Potter faced a crowd of more than 200 people to lay out the dire financial situation of the district on Tuesday evening.
“We’ll run out of money. I doubt I’ll make payroll toward the end of November,” said Potter, while presenting a slide presentation to illustrate what has happened to bring RSU 19 into what he estimates may be a $1.9 million shortfall.
Towns included in RSU 19 are Corinna, Dixmont, Etna, Hartland, Newport, Palmyra, Plymouth and St. Albans. Selectmen, town managers, teachers and residents from the towns listened and asked questions in the warm and humid cafeteria at Nokomis Regional High School. The school district’s budget committee as well as auditors were at the meeting.
Potter explained how multiple errors led to the deficit.
“I believe very strongly that when we [have our audit completed for the 2012 fiscal year], that negative swing is only going to be increased because of the overly gracious anticipation of fund balance help. I put $1.5 million on that and did some additional looking into this today. I think it’s going to be more in the neighborhood of $1.9 [million].”
Many gasps could be heard among the crowd when the final figure was announced by Potter. He said he could not give a definite number because the audit was not yet completed.
The school district anticipated fund balance help of $390,000 for the 2011 fiscal year, $830,000 for the 2012 fiscal year and $661,803 for the current school year. Potter said there shouldn’t have been any anticipated fund balance help, because the money wasn’t there.
To add to the problem, a spreadsheet error led to RSU 19 not billing the eight towns for voter-approved debt service in the amount of $362,916 for the 2012 fiscal year.
Potter said he feared that if a solution isn’t found soon to correct the problems, the school district’s debt could balloon to as much as $3 million for next year.
To help curtail some of the issues, Potter said he has frozen spending in the district. He has also found the potential for $790,741 in estimated cuts in this year’s budget, which includes personnel hiring, heating fuel, food service, building maintenance and improvements and planned energy assessment.
RSU 19 likely will have a measure on November’s ballot requesting funds from voters of the eight towns.
That didn’t sit well with St. Albans selectman Jason Gould.
“Look at your school budget vote the last time around. Six out of eight towns voted it down. They weren’t happy the first time around. They’re really not going to be happy this time around,” said Gould during the question-and-answer session that lasted well over an hour. “My point being, the answer of ‘Oh, we’re just going to go to the towns.’ That’s no dice. Because the well is dry. The well has been dry for a number of years, but we continue to dip the bucket in.”
The first step, Potter said, will be to have workshops with the board of directors to devise a plan to fix the budget shortfall. The next step would be to find a bank to work with for a loan, and if that is not approved by the public in November, other cuts might be in store.
“It will get to a point where no superintendent likes to be,” said Potter. “I don’t know know if that means [cutting] athletics. I don’t know if that means [cutting] extra-curricular [activities]. I don’t know if it means [cutting] other programs we aren’t required to offer by law.
“I don’t have those answers, but we continue to work,” said Potter.
was Bill Braun at this meeting to explain this shortfall? or is he out spending his double dipped salary and pension.
Question: Was Superintendent Braun really as inept as he is painted or is this Superintendent Potter overstating the situation?
In his former superintendent position, Potter ruled with and “iron hand” creating non-problems to solve. He’s a micro-manager who has the habit of freezing every budget from day one and then doing things his way…not the the way voters intended.
Good luck RSU#19… You either have a big financial problem to solve OR no problem at all OR maybe something in-between.
Tough times ahead. Time to pull together and solve this.
would be nice to solve the problem of who knew this way back in January, and why was everyone kept in the dark about it. Heads should roll….
My guess is people there saw the firestorm in RSU 26 when they started talking about what they thought would be a $2 million budget shortfall. Now that district is torn asunder. No one is going to want to admit that they knew about this and tried to cover it up to prevent drama.
for those who live in this school district, they may be asked to pay more. easy to say when it won’t be hitting your pocketbook.
but it will be hitting everyone’s pocket book, even the teachers. Not only in pay but in the fact that they may not get the materials they need and will no doubt have to spend even more out of their own pockets for there class rooms then they already do.
Wow. I feel sorry for the new superintendent. I wonder if he’s sorry he took the job. This is about the 5th school district we’ve heard this happening to in the last 5 years or more.
This poor guy really stepped right into it. The evening news said that the Finance Committee of the school board knew about this in January? I wonder what kind of going away gift Brawn got for retiring? Can they get a refund on it?
The fox in the hen house. To many school boards and tax payers are so concerned with the salaries teachers make that they don’t bother to keep an eye on the person [superintendents] they hire to keep teachers in line. If you look at supers’ salaries, benefits and even how the retirement formula is figured for them; you will see that even their amount of education and responsibility does not offset the difference in their high salaries as compared to a teacher with similiar experience and education.
You are absolutely right Mr. Grant. It also depends on what kind, if any, business manager you have as well. Even with the reduction in school districts, there are still a lot of sub-standard supers out there. But there are also some real Crackerjacks too. We are lucky to have one in our district right now. The triple threat of expertise… knows school financing inside out, knows education curriculum and Ed. law (has “been there, done that” in the classroom” too), and knows how to administer personnel and student affairs. My biggest fear now is that she’ll move on to greener pastures as we do not have the highest paid super position, and I bet she could earn a lot more elsewhere. In our case, I think the superintendent is worth every penny paid. We’ve had some in the past that I always wondered how they ever even got a Superintendent’s certificate. What does it take to get one anyway? What is the vetting process to be deemed competent to have that title?
Quality administrators and other educational personnel are seriously underpaid. Poor leadership can be devastating to a school district.
to add to that, there are some members of the school board who have no background in education whatsoever.
To bad they didn’t inclued ” Newburgh” as Newburgh could exceed this by themselves. People in the office without background checks, makes no sense than they will say, we couldn’t of known. Thank goodness, I reside in Hampden or we would of taken over and brought in repectable and honest folks that are satisfied working in a part-time office giving out registrations , dog tags and collecting taxes. No Police, no sidewalks, no public works so how do they justify working 50 hours per week, when the office is only open 4 days, if that ?????? Something is going on, yet once again and no one seems to care. The poor taxpayers of Newburgh, you just can’t seem to gain any type of control.Why, is the question, is it the IQ of the counsel members that just cannot see the full picture ? Has to be as these office people that you hiring, keep taking you for a ride. The community knows it , the only folks who do not, are your selectmen. Sad and it just continues on. Hampden has its share of troubles but nothing like Newburgh as ours are mostly policy and procedures.
said Potter. “I don’t know know if that means [cutting] athletics. I don’t know if that means [cutting] extra-curricular [activities]. I don’t know if it means [cutting] other programs we aren’t required to offer by law.”hey folks lets cut more education …..its not important.Bill Braun need to be held accountable.. my bank doesnt take the excuse of . .“I believe very strongly that when we [have our audit completed for the 2012 fiscal year], that negative swing is only going to be increased because of the overly gracious anticipation of fund balance help.” Why should we accept that excuse??????
Our new superintendent has his work cut out for him. People need to remember that old superintendent is the one who should be held accountable for the shortfall, along with the business manager and whoever else. Looks like it’s going to be a difficult year – hope the effect on students is minimal!
HA HA HA. You used accountable and two public employees in the same sentence. Man you’re good. You should try out for the comedy store.
What is sad is that athletics will be the last thing to get cut. Athletics needs to be the first thing to go. You threaten to cut that and the towns will vote yes.
Notice that administration and teacher salaries and benefits are never mentioned when cuts are discussed, yet they probably make up 80% of the spending.
Teachers are going to get cut, people are going to get cut. What do you mean they are never mentioned? It just common sense when facing 1.9 million dollar hole. People will have to get cut. They might not be able to make payroll.
I live in this school district, everyone is right in an uproar. The community is trying the best that it can to help contribute the difference, but its quite the difference. This RSU includes Dixmont, Etna, Plymouth, Detroit, Newport, Corinna, Hartland, St. Albans and Palmyra. It is a big spread out district, and not one of those towns are what you would call ”rich”… Its a shame that the kids are the ones that are going to miss out.
If the money will really run out in November then there is no time to wait for a ballot measure. You either have to cut all extra-curriculars or start charging participation fees–sports, music, anything that requires paid supervision/instruction and use of district facilities. Next you can start charging for transportation. My kid’s district in CO charges $2 per ride (each way) or $200 for the year. No matter what, the residents will end up paying for services that have always been “free.” With this mess, RSU19 can probably kiss that new HS and ElemS goodbye.
This fiasco was caused by an incompetent superintendent and an unwitting business manager. It was complicated by the budget process that is so complex that the average school board member, let alone the average citizen, cannot grasp it. We rely on the super and manager to perform due diligence. They did not. They will not be punished. They were not overseen properly by the schoolboard. And the electorate will probably not extract a pound of flesh from the schoolboard. This series of failures, as ungainly as it is, is an example of how democratic republic like ours can fail its citizens in specific instances. Both more centralization and less centralization of the educational system might have avoided this current problem but those two options each have their own potential for disaster. Sad as it is, we’ll have to take out financial beating and, hopefully, avoid future repetition of the debacle. Unfortunately, our society has a short memory and we often are forced to relive the past. Is there a solution? Haven’t heard one I like. We can placate some citizens by drastically cutting spending but thus hurting both the students and teachers, who are blameless. We can raise the mil rates. We can borrow money and kick the can down the road a bit. Probably we’ll blend the three. And still be left with the nagging thought that we can take no satisfaction from punishing those responsible.
According to an article dated March 11th in The Portland Press Herald, Former RSU 19 Superintendent Braun hauled in just over $202,000 last year in salary and pension benefits. I say let’s start with him to close this gap.
That would take care of $1.01 million over 5 years!!!!