By Rick Wright

Staff Writer

A dire financial report for South Portland schools has forced the school board to reconsider high school renovations. 

The board of education is expected to decide Monday whether to hold a June referendum on an estimated $41 million worth of renovations to the school. 

The agenda Feb. 8 also will include a presentation from the Secondary Schools Facilities Committee about the project’s final price and design.

Superintendent Suzanne Godin last week told the board she expected a $2.4 million shortfall in the school department’s budget next year. She said the deficit is the result of a $1.4 million reduction in state funding and increased expenses for items such as fuel and employee health insurance plans.

She said a $2.4 million deficit means 30 or more positions would have to be eliminated in addition to 17 jobs cut last year. Godin said she does not foresee the financial picture getting any better for fiscal year 2012, which begins July 1, 2011. That means decisions about future job loss will be made in spring 2011.

“We’re decimating our budget so we’re decimating our ability to pay for the referendum,” Godin said.

The superintendent said reduced subsidies, increasied expenses and an inability to raise taxes would make it very difficult to make bond payments on a high school renovation project.

Monthly bond payments of $3 million would start in 2013 if South Portland voters approved a referendum, Godin said.

“The bond has to be paid for. The superintendent said when the first payment comes due, I need to have $3 million sitting as part of my budget. I couldn’t see it,” said Maxine Beecher, school facilities committee member and city councilor.

Steve Bailey, South Portland’s assistant superintendent of schools, agreed the referendum should be delayed.

“It was a fiscally prudent decision,” Bailey said. “This looks to be the direction in which we’re heading.”

Bailey said the school department would like to limit the price of remodeling the high school to between $41.9 and $42.1 million.

City councilor and school facilities committee member Tom Blake favors postponing the referendum. 

“I think it’s a good idea,” Blake said. “In these current economic times, the timing is not right. This will give everybody an opportunity to step back, look at the big picture and determine where we are going to receive the funding for future projects.”

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