A flat-funded School budget would require cutting $1.36 million and lead to the elimination of 34 positions, including administrators, teachers and education technicians.

That was the assessment of Superintendent Stan Sawyer Monday night as he reacted to Mayor Bruce Chuluda’s proposed budget at a meeting Monday night.

“I would like to respectfully indicate to Mayor Chuluda that if we do level fund the schools, it will drastically impact the quality of education in Westbrook as we know it,” Sawyer said. “Certainly, our intent is to do better than level fund the community when it comes to taxes. We expect to see a tax reduction.”

Sawyer said that as a possible alternative to layoffs, the School Department would be forced to look at eliminating some programs. “That’s a big number,” Sawyer said. “If we were to have to find that money, we would have to dismantle some of our long standing programs.”

As an example, Sawyer said that the School Department’s budget for music, art, and athletics and extracurricular activities would add up to the approximate cut that would be required to meet level funding. Sawyer said he used those three programs as an example only, and no decisions had been made.

“Not that I’m saying that’s what would be cut,” he said. “I’m just saying that gives you the magnitude of it.”

Sawyer said a second example of the cuts that would be required to meet a flat funded budget was the potential elimination of the alternate education program, the guidance programs, and the school nurses. Sawyer said even with those programs eliminated, the department would still have to look at cutting technology support personnel to meet the budget. Once again, Sawyer said he was using these examples solely to illustrate how the budget cuts would affect the school department.

In his proposed 2005-2006 budget, Chuluda proposed funding the school budget at approximately $25.8 million, a $298,000 increase over the 2004-2005 budget. That increase was due mostly to the increased debt service from the Congin School renovation project. Other than increased debt service, the mayor proposed funding the schools at the same level as last year.

Chuluda said he realized that the decision to flat fund the schools would not be universally popular. “While my directive to the School Department to flat-fund their expenses will no doubt be met with resistance and paint me as ‘anti-education,’ the majority of our taxpayers, our senior citizens and those faced with the struggles of staying financially solvent, cannot continue to fund our school system at the levels they have been accustomed to,” Chuluda said.

Sawyer has proposed a budget of about $27 million for 2005-2006. This is about a 6.5 percent increase over the current budget of approximately $25.5 million. Sawyer said approximately $900,000 of the increase is due to contractual increases in salaries and benefits to school staff.

Originally, the school budget increase was at 5 percent. School Business Manager Michael Kucsma said that the while the budget figure has not increased, the percentage has gone up because the school department has received notification from the state that it would be receiving $2.1 million in state aid instead of the $2.2 million it was originally set to receive.

While the total overall budget for the school is up, Sawyer said the money coming from the city’s taxpayers would probably be going down. Sawyer said he expected to ask for approximately $500,000 less from local taxpayers in his proposed budget, about 3 percent less than the current appropriation.

Sawyer said he believed he has been vigilant in keeping the school budget down over the years. He pointed out that the last school budget asked for a only 1.69 percent increase from local property taxes. “That’s hardly the cost of living,” Sawyer said.

Sawyer said the School Department is committed to keeping taxes down. “I think we’ve been very aware of what’s going on in Westbrook,” Sawyer said. “Education is expensive. We try to hold the line in any way we possibly can.”

The Westbrook School Committee is scheduled to begin deliberating Sawyer’s proposed school budget at a meeting tonight (April 13) at 7 p.m. in room 114 of Westbrook High School.

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