This brief letter to the editor, by no means, is meant to adequately reflect my thinking regarding the development of the school budget over the past several years in Cape Elizabeth. The multiple community newspapers, the town Web site and the wonders of e-mail, have given our citizens the facts they need to formulate their opinions of school funding adequacy and the choices that the Cape Elizabeth School Board makes regarding how we meet the needs of our students and teachers that support continued excellence.

For whatever reason, a quote cited in last week’s issue of the Current cited that I felt that “in another two years, this (the CPI-U requested school budget increase of 3.4 percent) will affect student learning.” I need to make clear, that I feel that we have already affected student learning. The slow erosion of providing an adequate school budget over the past five years, has already forced the School Board to cut requested programming that affects student learning. We have had to repeatedly cut requests for classroom teachers that address class size and student loads, positions like a health teacher/guidance counselor/remedial support or nurse to meet changing needs, technology techs to support learning through computer technology, professional development – the list is extensive.

The trending loss of state funding monies for education, coupled with unfunded mandates from the state and federal government, loss of federal funds for Reading Recovery, escalating health care and energy costs, have had the School Board trimming for five years to what I see as “a bare bones” budget. When you top this

off with a Town Council three-year CPI-U spending cap and the retention of 100 percent of the town’s increased LD-1 money, we are stopped from not only moving forward but also from maintaining the current level of teaching and learning. Student learning has been, and will continue to be affected, if the town cannot commit to more financial support to our schools.

Elaine Moloney

Cape Elizabeth School Board chair