After their second trip to the polls this summer, Westbrook voters have approved a $51 million FY25 school budget accompanied by a 13 percent school-side property tax rate hike.
According to the unofficial results published on the City of Westbrook’s website, 1,856 residents voted in total, with 53.7 percent supporting the proposed budget.
997 ballots were cast in favor of the budget, while 859 voted in opposition, meaning that the vote was decided by just 138 ballots.
Click Here to See the Full Results of Tuesday’s Vote
The new iteration of the budget voted on Tuesday was about $700,000 less expensive than the previous version considered in June.
Accompanying the proposal now-approved is a 13 percent school property tax rate hike, down slightly from the 15.7 percent increase included with the first iteration of the budget.
Under this FY25 budget, the town’s school-side mill rate would increase from $9.24 to $10.44 per $1,000 of property valuation.
When combined with the tax increases associated with the city-side of the budget, Westbrook property owners are looking at a 9.3 percent property tax hike in total.
This corresponds with an updated mill rate of $18.23 per $1,000 of property valuation, representing a $1.55 increase compared to FY24.
The total cost the FY25 school budget represents just over an 8 percent increase compared to the FY24 budget. Originally, the budget was set to increase 9.6 percent over the previous year.
Click Here for More Information on Westbrook’s Tax Rates for FY25
The $700,000 worth of cuts were made primarily by eliminating a number of unfilled, high-paying positions, including a not-yet-hired Curriculum Coordinator with a salary of more than $125,000.
$3,000 worth of spending on audio visual equipment and an $8,350 stipend for the Westbrook High School Key Club were also cut from the FY25 budget.
In addition to this, the district reduced their planned lease purchase from two school buses to one, trimming $26,000 off the cost of the upcoming year’s budget.
Click Here to See the Full Memo Regarding Budget Cuts
According to the Portland Press Herald, the vote held in June was reportedly the first time that Westbrook voters have ever rejected a school budget at the ballot box.
The first draft of the budget was voted down by a margin of just 53 votes, or by about 2.78 percent. In total, 48.38 percent of Westbrook voters supported the school budget, while 51.16 percent opposed it.
[RELATED: Westbrook Voters Reject School Budget with Nearly 16 Percent Property Tax Hike]
School officials have explained that the majority of the district’s added expenditures for FY25 have come as a result of rising payroll and benefit costs for employees.
In a letter sent to Westbrook residents, Superintendent Peter Lancia said that the proposed budget was designed to meet the increasing needs of students in the district.
“The complexity of our student population continues to expand,” Superintendent Lancia said. “This includes students in special education programs with over 600 learners receiving services including a record number of students requiring outside of district placements in programs and facilities due to significant needs.”
“Additionally our population of students receiving multilingual services continues to grow, now to over 500 students, many of whom are newcomers and require targeted support in English as well as social services,” said Lancia.
During an early reading of the budget before the Town Council, Canal Elementary School teacher Megan Murrow told officials that the size of her classroom has grown from 13 to 19 over the past two years, and her students are in need of extra support.
According to Murrow, 21 percent of her students need multi-lingual support, 26 percent need individual education support, and 42 percent need social and emotional support.
This vote comes a week after Lewiston voters approved a $109.6 million school budget with a 9 percent school-side property tax hike after rejecting two previous proposals.
About 54 percent of those who turned out to the polls voted in support of the proposal, which is roughly equal to the proportion of voters who rejected the second draft of the budget in June.
With 1,230 votes in support of the proposal and 1,033 in opposition, the school district’s FY25 was ultimately approved with a margin of less than two hundred ballots.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="29399 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=29399">3 Comments
another school budget passed by just a few votes weird how this keeps happening…. nothing to see there…random thought: i wonder what the number of illegal newcomers the town of westbrook is taking care of is? i bet its about 997ish
So I guess those positions were never needed, but more like padding the budget. So they really did not cut as much as they said, since no one is getting laid off etc.
Our school budget in Dexter averages $19,918 per student. Westbrook is not the only community with out of control spending.