MADAWASKA, Maine — The Madawaska School Committee Wednesday night eliminated the equivalent of 12 full-time teaching and staff positions but are hoping the community will support a request to fund the teaching positions through the end of the current school year.
The cuts in teaching positions represent more than 20 percent of the 43-member faculty.
To help meet mandated $525,000 in cuts, the board eliminated the Gifted and Talented program teacher and one teacher each from kindergarten and the business, mathematics, science, social studies, English and French departments.
Those teachers could finish out the year if voters back a half-mill property tax increase at an upcoming special town meeting tentatively planned for Friday, Dec. 21.
The committee also eliminated a half-time physical education teacher, a half-time elementary school teacher, a half-time education technician, a half-time school nurse, a custodian and a secretary.
“I can not recommend the cuts,” Superintendent Terry Wood told the committee after they came out of a two-hour executive session and before they voted. “But these are options.”
About 100 residents waited out the executive session in the Madawaska High School library to hear the committee’s decision.
The committee also accepted an offer from the teachers’ association to cut teacher salaries this year by 3 percent, mandate 2 furlough days, cut administrative salaries by 2 percent, and reduce funding to extracurricular activities. The committee also accepted an offer by retiring Madawaska Elementary School Principal Ginette Albert to voluntarily forfeit $10,000 — 23 percent — of her salary this year.
“At this time of the year we are looking for what is best for the kids and every single one of us agrees making these cuts at this time of the school year is not best for the kids,” Wood said.
Normally the teachers and staff facing elimination would receive a 90-day notice, making their last day of employment Feb. 28, Wood said, and requiring close to $50,000 to fund substitute teachers to fill in the rest of the year.
To keep those teachers employed through June, taxpayers would need to approve $175,000, or a half-mill increase this fiscal year, Wood said.
“To finish off this year and be fair to the kids we have to back to the town and ask for this money,” Wood said. “If the taxpayers say no, I really don’t know where else you want me to go with this.”
Last month, voters rejected the proposed school budget, which included a $275,000 increase from the previous year. The residents mandated that the school committee reduce the proposed budget by $525,000 before presenting it to voters again. Those same voters approved a municipal budget that reflected $250,000 in cuts from the previous year.
Since then, committee members have met with members of the teachers’ negotiating team in an effort to reach a compromise on cuts to teacher salaries as a way to make up at least part of the shortfall.
The need for the budget cutbacks was prompted by property tax abatements granted to Twin Rivers Paper Co., reducing its valuation from $170 million to $85 million during a four-year period beginning in fiscal year 2010.
Cutting or eliminating academic programs, extracurricular activities and athletics have also been discussed, in addition to reduction in administrative and hourly salaries, furlough days and shortening the school year.
Last week after a five-hour meeting with the school department’s negotiating committee, the teachers’ association agreed to reopen its collective bargaining agreement and reportedly offered to accept reducing salaries by 5 percent in a three-year period.
During the subsequent school committee meeting later that day, however, the committee proposed a 9.45 percent teacher-salary reduction.
The committee has since backed off from that proposal after being warned by counsel from the Maine Education Association, which represents teachers statewide, that the move could represent bad-faith negotiations on the committee’s part and potentially open the school department up to litigation.
In agreeing for the one-year, 3 percent teacher salary reduction, the school committee retained contract language allowing them to again re-open the collective bargain agreement if the current or future valuation abatements at Twin Rivers create economic hardship for taxpayers.
The teachers had offered a 5-percent salary reduction package over three years with the stipulation that the reopening language in the contract be removed, a move school committee members saw as too risky.
“There is a lot of uncertainty out there,” Yves Dube, committee chairman said Wednesday night. “That abatement could really hit us hard again [and the reopening agreement] is really protection for the taxpayers.”
Cutting educational people but keeping all those extra-curricular things makes no sense.The public need to look at the schools mission statement to see if it mentions soccer , basketball and the others.These personnel cuts will have a huge impact on the quality of education offered there.
I’m glad that the corporate handout the mill got is working out so well for the town.
What a nice thing for Ginette Albert to do!
It is obvious that the school department couldn’t step to the plate and reduce their budget themselves but had to be forced to do it. Now that they did not they are in turmoil. More and more today we are all faced with a lagging economy and lack of tax revenue to support what was once the norm. Until issues of this nature come to the surface and finally wake up those living in the so called bubble we are going to be taxed to the max. People need to realize that the days of someone else paying the burden of their taxes is gone. In this case the mill now valued at about half of what it was. Where did you think the money that they used to pay was going to come from. Time to start living within your means. And think about this what if the mill were to close tomorrow what would you do then? Do you have a contingency of where your tax dollars will be raised if this were to happen? PS I thought that the town was a separate budget process and they only had to raise their share according to state law. Now the town should say no.
If you live, work, run your business, etc. in a town, you owe a duty to that town. You’re not blessing them with your presence — we’re a community. It’s wrong for the mill to have gotten such a huge tax abatement. And now a 20% reduction in teaching stuff? That is absolutely insane and of course, unfortunate.
I don’t know what’s wrong with my generation and older ones as well. We were blessed with so many opportunities and we’ve been so greedy and entitled about it. Our selfishness is robbing our children of those same exact opportunities we had — its’ wrong and it’s shameful.
I’m with you. Raise my taxes 1-2%, better than giving our kids a half #$% education. As for the abatement, its done, so lets move on but the next time they come grobbling for a recduction we say hell no.
You simply cannot compare one generation to the previous one. The cost of healthcare is the 800-pound gorilla in any American room, and it is extortionate compared to when you or I were growing up in Maine. Obamacare will do nothing to resolve this situation. All it will do is force the young, healthy population to fork over money it can ill afford to subsidize the older one, which does indeed have a sense of entitlement when it comes to healthcare.
Sooner or later the taxpayers in Mad Town will have to face the music and pay much higher property taxes to offset the mill tax abatement grants. The mill is not going to be around forever to provide continued financial support to the town. Meanwhile the taxpayers are OK for another two years with the changes to the School system. It would be very disruptive to the students if the plug is pulled on those teachers before the end of the school year.
Whatever property owners would have had to pay in increased taxes will pale in comparison to the loss in the value of their homes and businesses. Who wants to live in a town with schools that are decimated. It may take a year or two, but I’d bet my house that most of the professional staff will leave for other school systems if they can sell their devalued homes. What a mess for everyone involved.
It’s not rocket science: teachers, staff and administrators take a 3% cut; a few (4 or 5) employees get let go; a few extracurriculars get cut; and taxes go up a little bit.
Voila.
Until next time, when the increase will double.
you are such a dimwit
We have all heard the term tail wagging the dog? Oui? Non? Well the children are teaching the teachers that yelling, kicking and screaming will eventually result in your getting your way. Unfortunately, the lesson in the ‘real’ world is that reality is harsh and those childhood dreams no longer exist. Quit belly aching, accept your lot and move on… Kaliss. c;est pas rocket science tabanak.