On Monday, the Portland City Council unanimously approved the Portland Board of Public Education’s proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25), which includes a 6.6 percent increase in the school tax rate.
Voters will have the opportunity to weigh in on this budget at the ballot box on June 11.
Portland Public Schools explained in a press release Monday that the district originally went into the budgeting process with the expectation of having a $19.4 million shortfall that would have required a 17.41 percent tax increase.
This large funding gap identified at the outset was due to a combination of factors, including the loss of about $9.4 million in revenue — such as federal COVID relief funds — “relatively flat state funding,” and increased expenses.
The school district goes on to say that they were able to reduce this imbalance through “strategic reductions and restructuring.”
As calculated by Portland Public Schools, property taxes on a $375,000 median-priced home would rise by approximately $183.75 a year as a result of the FY25 budget.
The City Finance Committee came out in support of the school budget in late April, praising it as a “thoughtful budget” that is “as responsive as possible to the needs of our students, staff and families, while also keeping in mind the concerns of taxpayers.”
Click Here to Read the Portland City Council’s April Announcement
The FY25 budget on which voters will be asked to decide this June is a zero-based budget, meaning that it did not roll anything over from the previous fiscal year.
Instead, the district started from a clean slate and constructed a new budget from the ground up, “looking at both staff and non-personnel and ensuring that they align to the district’s emerging strategic plan.”
“We are grateful to the City Council and the mayor for their unanimous support of this budget,” said Board Chair Sarah Lentz and Superintendent Ryan Scallon in a joint statement. “In the face of daunting fiscal challenges, this budget is as responsive as possible to the needs of our students, staff and families, while also keeping in mind the concerns of taxpayers.”
“Portland voters have consistently shown at the polls each year that they value a quality public education for our City’s children and we hope they turn out again June 11 to support this fair and responsible budget,” Lentz and Scallon said.
Click Here to Read the Portland City Council’s Press Release
Earlier this month, the Portland City Council held a first reading of the FY25 budget and accepted comment from the public.
“Any reduction will cause much more harm to the district and our kids than it will benefit individual property tax payers,” one woman said at the meeting. “Education is one of the most important investments we can make as a society, and while property taxes are regressive in nature, they are currently the main instrument we have for this investment.”
“While I enthusiastically support the FY25 [Portland Public Schools] budget as approved by the school board,” she continued, “I also support expansion of property tax relief measures and the identification of alternative, sustainable revenue sources to make the property tax burden more equitable and to make it less central to how we fund education and other critical local services.”
Click Here to Watch the Portland City Council’s May 6 Budget Discussion
Two weeks later, on May 20, the Portland City Council held a second reading of the budget and again took comments from the public. The Council went on to vote unanimously in favor of adopting the budget as written.
One member of the public referred to the close linkage of the school budget to property taxes as a “shame and tragedy” because it continually “pitches neighbor against neighbor” in the effort to work “towards a better Portland and a more equitable Portland” which she argued necessarily “involves unequivocal, full support for our [school] budget.”
Another commenter criticized the staffing cuts included in the proposal, contextualizing them within Portland’s budget as a whole and suggesting that the city and school components ought not be considered in isolation of one another.
Despite these concerns, he nonetheless urged council members to support the proposal as written, suggesting that it is likely “better than what people expected a few months ago.”
“While it is not ideal — I would love a lot more money,” Lentz said shortly before the Council took its vote, “I do feel like this budget presented balances both the needs of our district and the needs of our community and taxpayers.”
After a brief discussion among the councilors in which many thanks were exchanged, they unanimously voted in support of the proposed FY25 budget.
Click here to Watch the Portland City Council’s May 20 Budget Discussion and Vote
When Portland voters go to the polls on June 11, they will be asked whether or not they support “approving the Portland School Budget for the upcoming school year that was adopted at the latest City Council meeting.”
Since June 11 is also the date on which the state primary is held, voters will have the opportunity to weigh in at the same time on their party’s nominees for seats in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, as well as in Augusta.
Click Here to See the June 11 Sample Ballot for Portland’s School Budget Referendum
