Due to back-to-back snowstorms, the Wiscasset School Committee is only beginning its preliminary budget meetings. Tuesday night, the committee reviewed proposed budgets for administration, facilities, and transportation.

Transportation has a preliminary increase of 3.59 percent. The largest reasons were mostly insurance and a bump in bus driver salaries.  According to Director of Transportation John Merry, the school district will require a new bus in the 2019-20 fiscal year. The facilities budget was nearly flat, at 1.54 percent, with the single largest expense related to the energy project, at $169,258, a decrease of $67,758 from last year. The state is giving the school district $167,516 toward the project, a difference of $1,742 for the energy efficiency work in the upcoming fiscal year.

In administration, an increase in salary costs are mostly attributed to a proposed plan to ask the vice principal at Wiscasset Middle High School to take on additional duties with the middle school students. That line item increased by nearly $40,000, or 33 percent. Overall, the administration costs for WMHS increased by 19.88 percent and for all the district schools by 12.62 percent. Other cost drivers in administration included insurance, salaries for support staff at the elementary school, and worker’s compensation increases.

The total proposed budget for the schools would increase the required local match to $3,766,951, from $3,549,087 in FY 2017-18, an increase of $217,864. Another budget workshop is set for 5 p.m. April 10. Superintendent of Schools Heather Wilmot said she will present the school budget to selectmen April 17.

A group made up of student council members, volunteers with Healthy Lincoln County, and the Substance Use Prevention Partnership proposed amending the schools’ tobacco policy. “Students aren’t smoking so much anymore because it’s not considered a good thing to do,” said senior Sarah Foley. “But they’re doing other things, like vaping, in part because they think it’s less dangerous, and because it’s easier to get away with it in school.”

The students made a short video describing the various non-tobacco nicotine devices. Some come in flavors and colors designed to appeal to young people, Foley said. “What they don’t know is that the nicotine in these vapors can get them addicted, even though it’s not a cigarette. And the health effects of the chemicals used in the devices aren’t good.”

The committee agreed to amend the policy to ban vaping devices. Committee member Glen Craig said he could support the ban in schools, but he felt it was a slippery slope toward violating the rights of adults in the community to use a legal product. “When we start banning cigarettes and other things in public areas, we’re stepping over a line,” he said.

He recused himself from the vote, which passed 4-0.