Sheepscot Valley RSU 12, serving students from Alna, Chelsea, Palermo, Somerville, Westport Island, Whitefield, Windsor and Wiscasset, has crafted a budget for school year 2013-2014 that continues to support effective teaching and individualized learning.

It will be the second full year that all schools in the district employ the Response to Intervention (RTI) initiative, a method of assessment and teaching adjustment that catches students early and gives them the increased academic support they need to reach annual achievement goals.

Alongside RTI, RSU 12 will increase the hours of a behavior specialist using non-local funds to increase the availability of Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) in all schools. With mentoring by this specialist, classroom teachers will use new skills that will help them keep all their students meaningfully engaged in learning.

A third part that will help all students achieve their maximum potential will be the availability of social workers in all the schools. Some schools will be covered by contracted workers, while other schools will be served by RSU 12 social workers.

In this way, RSU 12 will increase social worker services at a decreased cost to the taxpayer. The increased social worker coverage will allow RSU 12 to give more support to families in need of and requesting these services. This type of support increases the likelihood of a student achieving her or his greatest potential as a learner.

Doing what is right for our students is the foundation for each of our decisions. In the current economic climate and based on what has happened in Augusta over the last four years, however, this means that we need to ask local property taxpayers to contribute more to education.

As proposed for FY 2014, RSU 12’s Total Budget will have gone up $585,000 since 2009, the last year when the eight towns were not yet RSU 12, a 2.25 percent increase over a five year period.

Yet, over this same time period, total RSU 12-wide property tax costs for education have gone from $12,567,770 to $15,469,108, an increase of $2.9 million or 23 percent. In the same time period 2009 to 2014, state subsidy has dropped from $12,885,437 in 2009 to an anticipated $10,187,095 in 2014, a decrease of 2.7 million or 21 percent.

The decrease in state subsidy is partly but not totally explained by RSU 12’s 15.3 percent decrease in student count over that same time period, which heavily influences the state subsidy funding formula.

The property tax relief goal of LD 1 (enacted in 2005) has never been realized. Instead of funding education at the target of 55 percent of the total cost of education as calculated by the Essential Programs and Services (EPS)model (upon which the state funding formula is based), the state is now funding education at about 45 percent, which is less than the 46.5 percent the state provided in 2006. The highest percent reached by the state was in FY 2009 when it funded 52.86 percent of EPS.

RSU 12 does and will continue to work toward making education in the district as effective for students and efficient for taxpayers as humanly possible. Please vote on the RSU 12 budget June 28, 2013.