March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Schools losing 58 posts

The Bangor School Committee gave initial approval to a $22.5 million school budget Monday, putting off final approval until the dust settles in the Legislature over school funding.

The 1991-92 budget marks a 2.7 percent increase over last year and, according to Superintendent James Doughty, was “the bottom line” for expenditures. The budget was approved by six committee members. Judy Guay voted in opposition.

Heaviest hit by the cuts was personnel expenditures which account for about 73 percent of this year’s budget. Cut for next year were about 58 positions, a savings in salaries and benefits of about $1.1 million.

Among the personnel cuts, 32 of the district’s 100 instructional assistants were eliminated as was the assistant director’s position for Bangor Adult and Community Education. The director of the program for gifted and talented pupils was reduced to a half-time position with Lee Worcester, the director, also becoming a half-time director of Chapter I pupils.

While their jobs were eliminated, not all personnel were cut. Some were reassigned elsewhere in the district. The School Committee approved 31 teacher and administrator reassignments.

The budget also cuts deeply into the capital outlay funds, pairing three-quarters of a million dollars. This reduction postpones repairs to roofs, oil tank removals and other construction projects.

Early in the meeting, Fifth Street Middle School teacher Margaret Clancey voiced concern about the proposed cuts and the subsequent reassignments.

“I know that at Fifth Street there are concerns among faculty members as to whether the changes are in the best interest of both the staff and students,” she said.

Clancey pointed out that teachers with decades of experience in the district were being moved out of the middle level or changed to other areas within the middle schools.

School Committee member Charles Sullivan laid blame on the 115th Legislature. He said that good education can prevent many of society’s problems, yet funding is being taken away from education.

“What we need is a war on ignorance,” he said, adding later that “somebody has to make a stand and say education reform has to go forward.”

Sullivan and other School Committee members want to trash the flat funding proposal to deal with the state’s budget shortfall over the next two years. The governor’s flat funding proposal would cost Bangor about $1.3 million in lost revenues.


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