Staff Writer 

In June, South Portland residents will weigh in on a proposed school budget for the second time since the new school consolidation law came into effect. Some voters familiar with the new process may not, however, expect to see a proposed $5.8 million bond on the same ballot.

“You can’t put these two questions on the same ballot,” resident Albert DiMillo argued on Monday. “The school budget depends on the bond, the two are linked and should not be separated.”

The proposed $40.8 million school budget, which represents a 2.2 percent increase from last year, adds four elementary teachers and eliminates stipends for sports coaches, according to Superintendent Suzanne Godin’s proposal. To meet the council’s suggested cap of a 3.5 percent increase to taxes, Godin suggests applying $1.2 million from last year’s surplus amount to the beginning of the upcoming fiscal year. According to her proposal, the funds will help counteract revenue shortfalls, but in the end, the school budget – including more than $15.5 million for regular instruction – is more than $263,500 over the council’s suggested cap. Combined with City Manager Jim Gailey’s proposed $112,000 decrease in the municipal budget, South Portland taxpayers may see a 2.71 percent increase, representing 38 cents per $1,000 of assessed value, in their property taxes.

In preparing his municipal budget, during the past two months Gailey has renegotiated fuel prices to help save an estimated $260,000, offered retirement incentives to avoid paying approximately $138,000 in wages and laid off five city employees who collected roughly $284,000.

“The [fiscal year] 2010 budget is my third budget in the manager’s position and by far the most difficult,” Gailey wrote in his proposal. “The economic times have presented a number of challenges, ones that created the perfect storm in municipal budget preparation. As I stated last year, South Portland does not have a cushion to weather this storm.”

While the proposed school and municipal budgets are still subject to final approval, councilors were supportive of the school board’s efforts to add to the June 2 school budget validation referendum ballot a $5.8 million bond for maintenance projects at Memorial and Mahoney middle schools and the high school. 

“I think all of these projects relate to the safety of our schools,” said Councilor Linda Boudreau, acting as mayor in Tom Blake’s absence.

The 21-year bond – which Godin said is a fraction of the funds necessary to meet the school board’s proposed maintenance plan during a February workshop – appropriates $2.3 million for the high school, $1.5 million for Mahoney Middle School and $1.8 million for Memorial Middle School. With interest, Finance Director Greg L’ Heureux said the bond would cost the more than $8.5 million. 

DiMillo is skeptical of more than the proposed bond’s scheduling. 

In lieu of shouldering the new debt, he suggested the council pull money from the city’s general fund and the school’s undesignated surplus to fund the maintenance projects.  

“On June 30, 2008, the South Portland General fund had $35 million in cash and short term investments. There is $3.6 million in surplus from the past two years sitting in the school board’s undesignated fund account,” he said, providing councilors with a written outline of the data. “You’ve got the cash – use it.”

In addition to his suggestions for alternative funding, DiMillo questioned the estimated life span of some of the projects the bond is proposed to fund, including new electrical and safety systems at two middle schools and the high school, in anticipation of future plans to build a consolidated middle school. 

“Why renovate two middle schools if we plan on tearing them down?” he asked. “Building one middle school would be cheaper than the maintenance plan.”

Councilor Tom Coward said he was unaware of any concrete plans to build a single middle school, although he was curious if the bond could be paid off before the 21-year maturity date. Heureux said the bond could be paid off with revenue from the sale of a building or rolled into a larger bond to fund construction of a new building.

“You need the revenue to do it, which is typically where the trouble is,” he said of paying off the bond early. “It isn’t very common.”

DiMillo further disagreed that a $900,000 security system and $320,000 generator should be included in the bond. Instead, he suggested the city use a nearly $300,000 Homeland Security grant from the Maine Emergency Management Agency – unanimously accepted by the council on Monday – to fund the two projects. 

Fire Chief Kevin Guimond said about $65,000 in Homeland Security money had already been used for security cameras at the high school football field and an emergency generator at the Community Center. It is unlikely more funding would be available for school-specific projects, he said. 

“The reason we put a generator at the Community Center is because it is our emergency shelter. And yes, we have cameras at the high school field, but what I’m looking at are the Portland Pipeline tanks,” Guimond said. “There are very specific things it can be used for and we have to get approval from Augusta. It has to benefit the entire community.”

DiMillo argued that maintenance projects identified in a report by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges Commission released in February were more important than the projects to be funded with the bond. The NEASCC report recommendations include replacing sodden ceiling tiles, repairing leaking sinks, upgrading the drainage system beneath the building and repairing a crack that separates room 220 from the rest of the building – projects Godin had said the bond would not address.

“Every one of those is much more important than a security system,” DiMillo said, and quoted statistics on recent school shooting incidents. “They’re using scare tactics about these school killings. They’re so rare, you can expect one murder every 12,800 years. And why do you need a generator? It’s not like a hospital where if the power goes out people are going to die.”

School Board member Rick Carter was baffled by DiMillo’s suggestions.

“To suggest the need for security is a myth at the high school because it hasn’t happened, is the worst possible way to look at security,” he said. “With 26 openings and exits unmonitored during the school day – we need to be proactive.”

Carter said the bond would also provide funding for a sprinkler system at Memorial Middle School, which he said he was “horrified” to discover did not already have one.

“We wouldn’t allow a business to open without a sprinkler system and we’re letting our kids go to school without one every day,” he said. “This is about the immediate needs for all three schools.”

Carter said the school board was careful to include projects that would not have to be “undone” in the event of a new middle or high school being built within the 21-year lifetime of the bond. Some of the projects could also be funded with federal stimulus dollars, which he said would reduce the borrowed amount.

“This allows us to spend up to the $5.8 million, not all of it,” he said. “In past bonds we have spent only what was necessary.”

School Business Manager Polly Ward said the school department was expecting to receive some stimulus dollars, although possible uses for the funds could be limiting.

“There will be money for modernization, which could fit some of these types of things,” she said.

The council unanimously approved the first reading of the bond, which could receive final approval on April 6. The council also unanimously approved scheduling an April 8 public hearing for the municipal budget. Councilors Jim Hughes, Patti Smith and Mayor Tom Blake were absent for the votes. 

“I hope we will have a full council present,” Boudreau said of the upcoming meetings.