By Rick Wright

Staff Writer

It’s official. In a special election last week South Portland voters approved the school budget for the 2010-2011 fiscal year.

The $37.8 million budget eliminates 25 positions, cuts the middle school football program, transfers the Hamlin School building to the city for use as a planning office and does away with salary increases for nonunion employees.

Middle school students who want to play football next year will be encouraged to join local community-based teams run by private organizations.

Of the 25 positions cut from the budget, 5.5 were occupied by teachers, according to Assistant School Superintendent Steve Bailey.

Due to resignations, transfers to open positions and the expiration of one-year contracts, only one guidance counselor at Memorial Middle School will be laid off, Bailey said.

At Monday’s board of education meeting, Chairman Rick Carter praised the counselor, Anthony Mastreani, for his service to the school system and expressed regrets for the layoff.

“This is truly the example of something we didn’t want to have to deal with,” Carter said. “This is only about economics. It is not about quality.”

Residents settled the debate about the school department’s 2010-2011 budget by a vote of 844-497. They also endorsed by a vote of 887 to 449 the continuation of school budget validation referendums for another three years. 

A total of 1,341 people went to the polls, 7.2 percent of South Portland’s 18,549 registered voters.

“It was a strong showing of support for the budget, which is very good news,” Bailey said. “It shows that the people who came out supported the budget and the way it was put together.”

The new budget of $37.8 million is a decrease of 3.99 percent from this year’s $39.4 million budget. It requires a 1.1 percent increase in the tax rate to create a secondary school capital reserve fund of $506,623.

For a South Portland resident who owns a home with an assessed value of $200,000, the budget will add $20 to the school portion of the annual property tax bill.

Scott Semmler was among those who voted against the budget. 

“I voted no for the increase in spending. I just don’t think they plan things out very well. If they had better planning, they wouldn’t need extra money,” Semmler said.

Barbara Barrall said she voted for the budget because, “I think education is one of the most important things we have going for us in this country and it needs money.”

Barrall didn’t like the idea of validating the school budget for three more years.

“I’m not sure there’s much point. It’s not advertised enough. Not enough people vote on it for it to be very meaningful,” Barrall said. 

The Legislature established school budget validation votes three years ago as part of the school consolidation law.

If voters defeated the referendum question, the city council would have made the final decision on school budgets starting next year.

By the end of July, all 218 school districts in Maine will have a school validation referendum, according to Jim Rier of the Maine Department of Education.

So far only two districts, Isle Au Haut and Sedgwick, have reported results to the state. Both towns rejected their school budgets, Rier said.

Frank Keenan voted against the budget but he voted in favor of extending the public referendum for three more years.

“That gives us a little bit more control over the budget. I wish they’d do it to the municipal part too. They should have (done) this a long time ago,” Keenan said.

“I voted to continue the public referendum. This is awesome what we have, the right to vote,” said South Portland resident Anthony Canarie. “In this country, it shouldn’t be taken away from us. I hope we’ll be able to keep voting on these referendums for the next couple of years.” 

Canarie justified voting for the budget by saying, “I don’t think we need to cut teaching positions. We need to keep the student to faculty ratio down. I don’t think making class sizes extremely large is the best thing to do at this time.”

Semmler said he voted for the referendum extension. 

“I think it’s absolutely crucial for the citizens of this city to be able to decide how the school board spends our money. It’s our money. To give them free reign over that is not a good thing.”

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