By Rick Wright

Staff Writer

Taking furlough days, freezing teacher salaries, increasing class sizes, offering virtual courses, having shorter school days over a longer year and coordinating schedules with other schools to share resources.

Those are some of the ideas and themes from a public forum the Cape Elizabeth School Board’s Ad Hoc Committee On Curtailment considered last week.

Approximately 90 people attended the Dec. 8 workshop that produced many suggestions to help bolster the town’s budgets. In this fiscal year, the state has curtailed Cape Elizabeth’s aid for education by a total of $1,125,779.

Committee members reviewed a 23-page handout that summarized the feedback obtained at the public session.

“There was a lot of discussion around bus routes,” said Rebecca Millett, the committee’s chairman. “We are required by the state to provide bus service up to grade eight and we can’t charge for it.” 

Two years ago, the high school and middle school bus service was consolidated to save money, and Millett said it was possible the 4 p.m. bus run could be eliminated to achieve some savings. 

Increasing parking fees for high school students and implementing “pay to play” plans for sports and extracurricular activities were frequently mentioned suggestions, Millett said.

“Take a hard look at the programs and prioritize was a global comment,” Millett said. 

Declaring one furlough day – possibly on April 16 – would save $50,000, said Superintendent Alan Hawkins.

One of the most popular ideas for increasing school revenue was recruiting more exchange students and charging them more tuition, Hawkins said.

Hawkins said public schools such as Cape Elizabeth High School may only host a foreign student for one year and tuition must be limited to $7,000.

“The biggest hurdle we would have with international students is housing,” Millet said. “There are some big questions but it’s definitely worth considering.”

Cape Elizabeth residents also had many ideas for generating more revenue for the municipal budget.

“Fort Williams was the huge one,” said committee member Sara Lennon, who is also the finance committee chairman of the town council. 

Charging parking fees, renting buildings and sponsoring daylong festivals at the park were all mentioned often, Lennon said. 

The town council is expected to discuss parking fees and other recommendations for Fort Williams at a Jan. 4 workshop.

She also said many people suggested delaying paving and other projects for a year and finding creative ways to use Hannaford Field, such as charging fees for its use.

Lennon said many people recommended consolidating or eliminating services to reduce municipal expenses. Suggestions included evaluating town and school library services and using the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office for police services.

“What I saw most consistently was a balance of cutting expenses and raising revenue,” Millett said.

“The big thing was getting the public looped into the process,” said Anne Swift-Kayatta, committee member and chairman of the Cape Elizabeth Town Council. 

“We’ve gathered a lot of information for the school board and town council to consider. Now they must go forward and make their decisions based on this information.” 

“We know the public is anxious for us to make some of these decisions. We hope to get it done in January,” Millett said.

Rick Wright can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 237, or news@inthesentry.com.