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Voters in Old Orchard Beach, Dayton and Saco will decide on the spending plan next week.

By EDWARD D. MURPHY, Staff Writer June 4, 2009

A budget for the new school union that covers Saco, Old Orchard Beach and Dayton is facing significant opposition less than a week before it goes to voters.

The Saco City Council on Monday voted 6-1 to pass a resolution withholding its support for the $43.5 million budget, which will be voted on in the three towns on Tuesday.

The council said its decision not to support the budget is based on the economic climate.

The council's resolution has no binding effect, because voters have the final say on school budgets in regional units created under the state's new consolidation law.

Previously, town and city councils approved the bottom line of school budgets.

But the council's opposition could raise questions for voters about why the first budget represents an increase of about 4.2 percent over the combined towns' school budgets for the current year, when school unions were pushed as a way to keep a lid on education costs.

Councilor Ronald Morton, who proposed the resolution, said he doesn't like the school budget's salary increases to workers under contracts, while the city kept its tax rate steady by withholding pay raises.

He said talks with unions are continuing, with the city asking workers to defer increases for at least a year, and the budget the city passed doesn't include pay raises.

"We want the message out that it's tough economic times and we're not going to support any salary increases," Morton said.

But Gary Curtis, a member of the Regional School Union 23 board, said drawing up a budget for the first year of the school union has been very difficult.

He noted that, under state law, the school board is bound by contracts negotiated before the school union was created last November. The new district doesn't officially come into being until July 1, and the board didn't meet for the first time until March -- so it has little standing to try to renegotiate contracts, Curtis said.

"We're not even a real entity yet. We're stuck with contractual obligations that were made before we even were an RSU," he said. "We're caught in a lousy timing situation."

Curtis noted that the school union is seeing an increase in state funding by about $400,000, but also has some increased costs, such as new accounting software and training required by the state.

He also noted that the school union has had to lay out money for some items, such as new school buses and special education costs, that will be reimbursed by the state next year. So this year, he said, the items are entered only as a cost, while next year there will be offsetting revenue.

Curtis said the board will try to get its reasoning out to voters in the days before Tuesday's vote. But in the end, he said, it's up to voters in the three communities.

"I'm not delighted with the budget. I don't think anybody is, but I think it's defendable and explainable," he said.

Ultimately, "it's a people's budget and it's up to the people to decide if they want it."

Staff Writer Edward D. Murphy can be contacted at 791-6465 or at:

emurphy@pressherald.com