Yarmouth Intranet

Superintendent of Schools


Office:        Judy Paolucci, Superintendent of Schools
Address:    101 McCartney Street, Yarmouth, ME 04096    
Phone:       207-846-5586        
Fax:            207-846-2339
Hours       7:30 AM - 4:30 PM, Monday - Friday



January 2012

 Dear Citizens of Yarmouth,

 On January 26th I will present a draft budget to the School Committee.  At that time I will further explain what I will now outline in this letter. 

 The development of the 2012-13 budget was done with extra care, as this coming year is the one we have been anticipating – the year often referred to as “the cliff,” when federal funds are discontinued and districts are left with a revenue deficit.  We prepared for this loss of federal funds in a couple of ways.  First, we set aside prior year’s fund balances into a reserve account.  The $126,520 remaining in this tax stability reserve account will be applied to the 2012-13 budget, decreasing the tax allocation requested. 

We also deferred use of the $533,000 Federal Jobs Bill funds to the 2011-12 budget while others had used at least a portion of these funds in the 2010-11 school year. Tightening our belt for a time rather than using Federal funds to increase expenditures, was the prudent thing to do.  Eventually, however, whether in the 2011-12 budget or the 2012-13 budget, we would have to see an end to these Federal funds.

During the development of the 2012-13 budget, administrators were asked to provide rationales for requests previously taken for granted.  The purpose was to identify areas that may be considered for reduction that would not result in a detriment to our instructional program.  Every budget line was scrutinized.  Herb Hopkins, our Director of Business Services, and members of the administrative team have worked incredibly hard this year to prepare this budget.

Because the current fiscal year is the last year we will be paying on the middle school bond, the amount of funds the school department needs for debt service in 2012-13 will be approximately $450,000 less than in the current fiscal year.  Thus, the reduction in debt service and the funds in the tax stability reserve account balance out the loss of Federal funds. 

On January 26th I will report a value for our projected increase in expenditures that considers no additional programs and no loss of programs.  While additional work is being done on the draft budget at this time, this value is anticipated to be somewhere in the range of 1.25% to 1.75%.  Again, this minimal increase was only possible through careful planning.   Had we not set aside funds in a tax reserve account, had we used some of our Federal funds prior to last year, had we not scrutinized every line of every school’s budget, we would instead be reporting a higher expenditure increase and would be coming to the taxpayers for a much higher tax allocation.

The draft budget will be considered by the School Committee and looked at in greater detail during the two budget workshop sessions scheduled on February 7th and February 14th at the Rowe School. At that time the School Committee may recommend allocating additional funds to the budget or make budget reductions.  The School Committee eventually votes on a final budget then proposes this budget to the Town Council, which considers the School Committee requests and makes budget recommendations to the community.  The community votes on the school and municipal budgets at the Town Meeting then votes again in a ballot referendum on the school budget.

This year the School Committee’s work will be a challenge.  During this fall’s program review, a committee researching the benefits of a full day kindergarten program presented a compelling argument for the consideration of full day K.  Although the committee had not yet organized community forums for input, the idea was to determine if the addition of this program would be fiscally feasible at this time.  If that were the case, the next step would be to gather community input to determine if this would be a good idea for our community.  Answering the question, “is it fiscally feasible at this time?” before answering the question, “do we want this program in our community?”  is the responsible thing to do. 

During the January 26th School Committee meeting I will present information about the effect of the addition of full day K to the school’s budget and the subsequent effect on a tax increase for Yarmouth citizens.  We will not debate whether or not full day K should be considered at this time.  Instead, School Committee members may spend time during the 2 subsequent workshop sessions to consider:

  • Should we research further the consideration of full day K at this time by organizing community forums to get input from the community?
  • Should we postpone our consideration of full day K at this time due to the economic environment? 
  • If we consider full day K at this time, should we identify programming cuts in other areas to offset the costs of full day kindergarten?

I invite you to attend any and all of the following meetings at which the School Committee will further develop the 2012-2013 school budget:

    Tuesday, February 7th                   Budget Workshop                          7 p.m.   Rowe School

    Tuesday, February 14th              Budget Workshop                          7 p.m.   Rowe School

    Thursday, March 8th                   SC Meeting/Adopt Budget             7 p.m.   Log Cabin           

If you have any suggestions or questions, do not hesitate to contact me or any School Committee member.




Feedback, Questions, or Comments


You are welcome to send an email to judy_paolucci@yarmouthschools.org