To keep the local share of school funding constant, School Administrative District 6 officials are proposing a “mean and lean,” $43 million budget, Superintendent Suzanne Lukas said this week.

A district-wide phone system would be put on hold, as well as renovations to the middle school gym entrance and an additional portable classroom. Four vacant teaching positions would not be filled.

At the same time, three propane-fuel buses and a fueling station would be added to the budget, as well as a new reading program for Grades 3-5.

On Monday, as the Budget Committee and Lukas presented their proposal to the Board of Directors, Lukas said she hoped to hear solid subsidy numbers from the state soon. With those numbers, the board hopes to adopt a budget at a special meeting March 30.

If the state subsidy comes in as expected, the total $43 million budget would keep the local share at $19 million, Lukas said. The proposed budget is $3 million more than this year’s $40 million budget. However, $2.5 million of that increase is new debt for the Buxton Center Elementary School, which will be reimbursed by the state.

“This is really, really compassionate to the people who are not working,” said Michael Delcourt, director from Standish.

The Budget Committee worked hard to keep the local share constant, Lukas said. A zero percent increase in health insurance premiums and the return of the state’s $562,000 budget curtailment helped.

When the state cut the district’s subsidy in November, it forced the district to pull back on spending. Since that money will not be returned until June, Lukas said it will help next year’s budget.

“It will come too late to spend that money,” Lukas said. “That is going to help us bring forward a healthy carry forward.”

The share of the budget that each town pays will shift due to changing property valuations. Frye Island, Hollis and Limington will pay more, while Standish and Buxton will pay less.

Keeping the local share constant was one of three goals the committee brought to the budget process, said Committee Chairman Teresa Whyte. The other two goals were avoiding forced layoffs and preserving existing educational programming.

The proposed budget meets all three of these goals, Whyte said. Though four vacant teaching positions would not be filled next year, there would be no layoffs.

There would be no increases in heating oil, propane, electricity and transportation fuels, and funding for materials, supplies and equipment would be virtually flat.

A new reading program for Grades 3-5 would be added this year and the district would continue on a 10-year plan to replace desks and chairs. Funding for library books would be restored, after it was removed this year to shift money to a new library circulation system.

A section of the middle school roof would be replaced and a vestibule would be built at Edna Libby Elementary School in Standish to protect the new gym floor put in last year. The proposed budget also includes funding to start switching over the district’s fleet of more than 60 busses to propane.

Rick Matthews, assistant superintendent of finance and operations, said he thought there was a strong chance that the $35,000 fueling station for the new propane buses would be paid for by the federal Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Each of the three new proposed buses would cost $80,000, Mathews said, which is $5,000 more than conventional buses. The state reimburses nearly $70,000 for each bus. He estimated that with cost savings from changing the fuel source, the buses would pay for themselves in three years.

“It’s a clean energy source,” Mathews said.

Some board members worried that the debt service on the new Buxton elementary school would be hard for residents to understand. The state has pledged to pay $2.5 million of the total $2.6 million of annual payments on the 20-year bond for the school. Even though this money will be added to the district’s subsidy, it still appears in the overall budget.

“It’s a very conservative budget,” said Charles Murray of Hollis, who served on the budget committee. “This probably isn’t going to happen again.”