Despite the reassessment of property values this past year, Lisbon School’s levy rate will remain roughly the same, at $17.1665 per $1,000. Last year’s levy rate was $17.17463.
“They round up to pretty much the same rate,” said Laurie Maher, business manager at Lisbon Schools in an interview after the hearing.
Maher said that when working on the budget, there were a few unknowns for the school district this year – especially state supplemental aid and what the increases to teacher salaries will do for a smaller district.
“I put no extra monies in our management fund this year, as it is already pretty robust,” Maher said. “I took the $200,000 we usually put in that fund and put that towards our cash reserve levy instead to help with any changes.”
Maher had put in a 2.5 percent for the state supplemental aid she was using, but knows there might be some other changes, as other portions of the budget drawn on from state budgets had predicted a 3 percent increase for that aid.
She’s also going to be looking for guidance from the state in the next several months when it comes to the new salary increases for new and experienced teachers.
Part of that is making sure the district can budget those increases in coming years if there is no funding from the state after making that change.
“Changes like that have a huge impact on a smaller district like us,” Maher said. “Larger school districts can probably weather salary changes like that, but it is tougher for a smaller school district to absorb those.”
Maher said two members of the public were in attendance at the hearing, and the board had a good discussion to help clear up the questions they had.
This was also Maher’s last budget cycle with the school district as business manager. She will be seeking early retirement at the end of this school year.
“It’s time for somebody else to take care of some of the heavy lifting as business manager for these schools,” Maher said.