Staff Writer 

At least three Cape Elizabeth town councilors were prepared to voice their support for a proposed $20.1 million, 1.93 percent increased school budget on Monday, but never got the chance. The budget Superintendent Alan Hawkins had prepared was irrelevant after he received word the town would receive $500,000 less in general purpose state aid than he was expecting.

“I made the mistake of opening my email on Friday,” he said. “My sense is about two-thirds of the state took cuts.”

According to preliminary reports from the Department of Education, Cape Elizabeth is set to receive more than $1.8 million from the state in general purpose aid funding, which is roughly 16.4 percent less than schools received last year. 

This is not as severe as is proposed for the town of Hersey, where the school system could receive 94 percent less than they did last year, the largest decrease in the state. The town of Caratunk could see the largest increase in general purpose aid – according to the preliminary documents they would receive $13,700, which is an increase of nearly 375 percent from the $3,600 they received last year.

“There’s something else doing this. There is something the state is not telling us,” Cape Elizabeth School Board member Rebecca Millett said, adding that Yarmouth, a town typically comparable to Cape Elizabeth in size and state property valuation, is set to receive nearly $418,000 more than last year, an 18 percent increase. “This can’t be the same funding formula they used last year.”

Maine Department of Education Director of Finance and Operations Jim Rier said the state used the same funding formula as previous years. The change in Cape Elizabeth’s state funding, he said, is due largely to an 11 percent increase in state property valuation and a decrease in enrollment. 

“There are many variables in play and valuation does play a role,” he said. “The one constant is that no one is happy – if they saw an increase, it’s not enough, and if they lost it’s too much.’

Prior to the news of the decrease, Hawkins’ budget, when combined with a reduced municipal budget prepared by Town Manager Michael McGovern, would have resulted in a zero percent increase in property taxes for residents in Cape Elizabeth – something Town Council Chairman Jim Rowe and Councilors Paul McKenney and Anne Swift-Kayatta said they would have supported sending to a school budget validation referendum in May. 

“To be honest, I was thrilled,” Hawkins said.

Rather than discussing the potential for a flat tax rate increase, councilors and school board members tackled the task of filling the newly formed gap in general purpose aid. A majority of school board members said they would support pulling more than $160,000 from the school’s contingency fund – money Hawkins had planned to use to enroll the school in a recently proposed high school computer initiative – to help stem the funding shortfall. At least one member was hesitant to touch the contingency account, however.

“I have no faith in the state. If we don’t have a contingency we’ll have to make cuts during the school year,” School Board Member Peter Cotter said. “I wouldn’t touch a cent.”

A majority of councilors also said they would favor transferring $200,000 from the town’s undesignated surplus fund to help the school, as they had initially voted to do for a previous curtailment that was later subsidized with federal stimulus dollars. 

Combined, the funding would leave an approximate $145,000 gap in the school budget. If absorbed by residents, the margin could represent a less than 1 percent increase from last year, $27 more a year for the median household which is an increase of 11 cents per thousand dollars of valuation, McGovern said. 

“I’d still like to see a flat tax,” Councilor David Backer said. “We all know there is a good sized group of people who say no amount is too much to spend on the school, but there is an equally sized group that said any increase is too much. I just don’t want to go through the public vote more than once again.”

Hawkins said the school board was scheduled to discuss funding options in relation to the decrease in general purpose aid funding during a special meeting on April 6.