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Upcoming MSAD 15 board meetings | Sam Pfeifle

| Eds. note: Sam Pfeifle is chair of the MSAD 15 school board and occasionally posts community updates on his Facebook page “Sam Pfeifle, Member, GNG School Board.” For links to upcoming meetings and more, go to msad15.org |

| Sam Pfeifle, Member, GNG School Board |

Happy Sunday morning, everyone – just wanted to make sure people are aware of the upcoming schedule of School Board meetings, as things are going to happen really quickly over the next month or so.

March 31 – School Budget Workshop: On Wednesday, the board will be getting our first look at the full budget for 2021-2022, as prepared by administration.

As you’ll remember from previous posts this year, we’re in a bit of a sticky situation with the budget, as the state believes Gray-New Gloucester land is a lot more valuable now and therefore is giving us a about $650k less money, which we have to make up for with local taxes. Combine that with annual increases to salary and benefits that happen every year, and we’ve got a situation where we may very well need to ask local taxpayers for a significant hike.

However, I do think we’ve created some good savings, and we’ve made some smart investments with the federal covid relief money, so my hope is that we can keep everything reasonable. But this is our chance as a board to see what dials we can adjust to make that happen.

As always, the more people who come out and hear the full story of what’s happening and can help spread the word, the better.

April 7 – School Board Business meeting – This business meeting will be chock-a-block with important information:

  • Where we are on more in-person school days
  • Where we are on the high school schedule for 2021/2022
  • Update on the NWEA test scores and how the kids are doing
  • What we’re getting in the next round of covid funding

April 14 – Budget Workshop – This will essentially be the last chance to ask questions of administration about the budget and talk about priorities, etc. We’ll talk here about the gap between expenses and revenues and what we’re comfortable passing along to taxpayers.

April 28 – Board Budget Business meeting – This will be the meeting that the board votes on the budget as it will appear in front of voters on the ballot. Basically, this is the last chance to make any adjustments in any way.

May 5 – Regular Board Business meeting – At this meeting, we’ll sign the warrant articles that will appear on the ballot, in addition to our regular monthly business. (We’ll also meet the high school’s top 10% graduates, which is always fun!)

As you can see, the budget discussions will now move very quickly, so if you have any questions or concerns, this is the month to pay attention and make sure you’re up to date with what’s going on.

As always, please let me know if there’s more or better information I can provide.

— Sam Pfeifle, from “Sam Pfeifle, Member, GNG School Board” March 28 on Facebook