Saco residents are set to vote Tuesday on a $39.3 million school budget that will add a pre-kindergarten program.

The proposed education budget is up more than $3.5 million from the current year, but is offset by revenue from the city. The school and city budgets, when combined, add 53 cents to the tax rate. The budgets would add $121 annually to the property taxes for a house assessed at $228,000, the median home value in Saco.

The budget will allow the district to add a new pre-kindergarten program for up to 64 students, enhance programming for special education students and implement further intervention support for math and literacy for at-risk students, according to a message to parents from Superintendent Dominic DePatsy.

The budget also adds a full-time middle school teacher to support robotics and other engineering programs, increases physical education for kindergarten to second-grade students from 30 minutes to 1 hour each week and replaces five school buses and three vans. The district will be reimbursed 20 percent of the cost of the buses by the state, with the possibility the state will pick up the full cost of two to four buses, according DePatsy.

Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Community Center on Franklin Street.


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