SCARBOROUGH — Scheduling the second reading of the FY 2021 budget for June 24, the Town Council passed a resolution that calls for town staff and administrators to “come to the table” and find fitting budget solutions.
On June 3, Town Manager Tom Hall said that he had presented a series of adjustments to the budget proposal at a finance committee meeting on June 2, about $400,000 worth of adjustments, which would bring the proposal to about a 1 percent increase in the tax rate.
“At this point this does not include any additional modifications or adjustments to the school budget that was done at first reading,” he said.
While discussing the passed resolution for town and school administration to “come to the table with their respective elected officials to find budget solutions that balance the needs of all residents, taxpayers, students, and employees under these extraordinary circumstances,” Council Chair Paul Johnson told Scarborough’s teachers to “do what’s right.”
“Let’s put your money where your mouth is,” he said. “Because we need to do the least amount of harm. The people who are pounding the 0 percent drum, you don’t know why you’re pounding that yet. The appropriate analysis is are we spending the least amount of money for the least amount of harm. It’s not about a number.”
He also called for the Board of Education to approve the 2020-2023 professional staff contracts, which the board did on June 4.
Councilor Ken Johnson said that he agreed with the public comments that ask the town to support the schools, but he agreed with Paul Johnson that teachers and staff may need to take a pay cut for the upcoming year in order to save all staff positions.
“I find it hard to support a budget that also includes money to support pay raises in the time of almost 1,000 Scarborough residents out of work right now,” he said.
During the public hearing section of the meeting, School Board member Hillor Durgin told the council that the town should be investing in its schools.
“The council goal at the first reading was to limit the mil rate increase to 2 percent and I just want to be clear that the School Board has met and has actually exceeded that goal since then,” she said. “I’ve heard a number of council comments advocating for a 0 percent budget increase, and although vague reasons have been made to ‘unprecedented times,’ I haven’t heard specific reasons as to why this is the best path.”
In order to keep schools and students safe and up to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations, Scarborough Schools will need to invest over $400,000 at minimum, she said.
“We have the responsibility to serve each of those students to the best of our ability,” Durgin said. “They always deserve a school system that recognizes, meets and invests in their needs, but now more than ever they’re counting on us to do all of that and more. So please take this into consideration when you decide on school budget amount and acknowledge that reductions required to meet a 0 percent increase in the mil rate will not allow us to provide a safe, healthy, and responsive school environment for our students.”
Susan Hamill, who lives on Bay Street in Scarborough, told the Town Council that she “did not want to pay one penny more on property taxes” than last year.
“The mission of town government is not to serve town employees,” she said. “It’s to serve the taxpayers of Scarborough. The citizens we elected to guide the town and school management need to remember why we taxpayers voted for you, to protect our interests.”
She concluded, “We can pass the budget the hard way or the easy way. Put a budget together that results in a 0 percent tax and mil rate increase and it’s done the easy way. Anything higher and it will surely be the hard way.”
Most Scarborough residents want to support the police, fire, paramedics and want to maintain top-rated schools, Sarah Blaisdell, a resident on Farmhouse Road, said.
She said that she supports the proposed 1 percent tax increase.
“Scarborough still has much lower taxes than surrounding towns and we need to make sure our town stays properly funded,” Blaisdell said. “Allowing a 0 percent increase will place Scarborough in a permanent hole that will never be filled without a large tax increase in the future.”
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