Proposed AOS 91 Budget And How It Could Affect Your Taxes
Public AOS Budget Warrant Meeting This Wednesday, January 22
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Window Panes Home and Garden.
BAR HARBOR—The AOS 91 budget has been voted on and approved by the AOS 91 School Board, which is comprised of all members from each of the nine local school boards or committees. The AOS is the administrative portion of the region’s school system.
The AOS 91 School Board has 36 members. The high school board is comprised of the 20 members of the local school boards of the four MDI towns. Both of these boards have separate budgets, which work a bit differently.
ASSESSMENT INCREASES TO TOWNS
Unlike the high school budget, every town in AOS 91 pays toward the AOS budget. Only the four MDI towns pay toward the high school’s budget.
In the lists below, the high school is listed with the towns because it pays into the AOS just as if it was a town. However, while the AOS assessment to the high school is embedded into the overall high school school budget, just like the school budgets of the eight towns, the majority of the high school budget is paid by the four MDI towns.
The remaining towns pay tuition to the high school for the students attending from their schools.
Each town’s portion of the AOS budget is based upon a formula that uses three factors in determining what each town pays. However, prior to that formula calculation, every town in the system pays .5% of the total AOS budget. The remaining budget is paid using the three-factor calculation system. Those three factors are:
The school’s percentage of the total combined school system budget;
The school’s percentage of students in the AOS;
The school’s percentage of full-time staff in the AOS.
These three percentages are averaged to determine the school’s share by percentage.
By town, the FY25/26 assessment percentages to be paid by each town and the change in percentage from FY24/25 are below.
MDI High School – 27.23% – ( -.47%)
Bar Harbor – 22.87% – ( .35%)
Mount Desert – 11.62% – ( -.17%)
S.W. Harbor – 10.47% – ( .24%)
Tremont – 10.36% – ( .23%)
Swan’s Island – 3.16% – ( .0%)
Cranberry Isles – 1.74% – ( -.08%)
Frenchboro – .89% – ( -.04%)
Trenton – 11.66% – ( -.05%)
By town, the total projected FY25/26 assessments, assessment increase from FY24/25, and the percentage of the assessment increase from FY24/25 to each town are below.
MDI High School – $809,561 – $146,117 – 22.02%
Bar Harbor – $679,936 – $140,753 – 26.10%
Mount Desert – $345,468 – $63,187 – 22.38%
S.W. Harbor – $311,278 – $66,347 – 27.09%
Tremont – $308,008 – $65,472 – 26.99%
Swan’s Island – $93,948 – $18,290 – 24.17%
Cranberry Isles – $51,731 – $8,156 – 18.72%
Frenchboro – $26,460 – $4,194 – 18.84%
Trenton – $346,657 – $66,292 – 23.64%
By town, the additional taxpayer burden per $100,000 of property value for the proposed FY25/26 budget is not available for this budget as it is built into the total of each individual town’s school budget.
WARRANT ARTICLES AND INCREASES
The overall proposed FY25/26 budget is $3,399,257 which is a 22.98% or $635,201 increase over the FY24/25 budget of $2,764,056. The total proposed assessment to the towns for FY25/26 is $2,973,047 which is a 24.18% or $578,808 increase over the FY24/25 budget town assessment of $2,394,239.
By warrant article number the increases are as follows.
Article 1, “special education” has a proposed increase of 36.95% or $340,149. This brings the FY24/25 budget of $920,586 to a proposed $1,260,735 for FY25/26.
Article 2 is broken down into two different headings which are combined into one amount for the actual warrant. If you combine the two, there is a proposed increase of $78,995. This brings the FY24/25 budget of $868,675 to a proposed $947,670 for FY25/26.
Article 2, “staff and support, office of curriculum” has a proposed increase of 7.64% or $35,833. This brings the FY24/25 budget of $468,909 to a proposed $504,742 for FY25/26.
Article 2, “student and staff support, technology” has a proposed increase of 10.8% or $43,162. This brings the FY24/25 budget of $399,766 to a proposed $422,928 for FY25/26.
Article 3, “system administration” has a proposed increase of 22.16% or $216,057. This brings the FY24/25 budget of $974,795 to a proposed $1,190,852 for FY25/26.
TAXPAYER INPUT FOR THE PROPOSED AOS 91 BUDGET
School budgets make up a large portion of the town budgets for all four towns on Mount Desert Island. Those individual school budgets are crafted by school administrators and then scrutinized until a final version is approved by the individual school’s school committee or board whose membership stands as taxpayer/resident/student representation.
These budgets are then further scrutinized by warrant committees and select boards/councils before being approved to be put on a town’s town meeting warrant.
As registered voters, residents have the annual opportunity to weigh in and to approve, or not approve, those school budgets at their town’s annual meeting.
The same holds true for the AOS budget. While not under the jurisdiction of any one town government, the AOS board is made up of the boards of all nine schools in the AOS that are residents’ representatives in AOS matters, including the budget.
However, the AOS board approving a budget does not ratify it. The AOS budget must still go through a public meeting process where the public (registered voters of any of the eight towns that make up the AOS) gets the opportunity to attend, ask questions, and vote on whether or not the budget gets final approval. This is the registered voters of each of the eight towns opportunity to have a say in the budget and how it affects their property tax burden.
The annual public budget meeting for the AOS 91 budget is scheduled for this Wednesday, January 22 at 6 p.m. and will either be in the high school library or the theater.
THE WARRANT
ASSESSMENT CALCULATIONS SPREADSHEET
Disclosure: Shaun Farrar is an elected member of Bar Harbor’s warrant committee.
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