Flat Budget Signals Changes at Island Schools

STONINGTON—Zero percent increase.

- Rich Hewitt

That’s the goal for the Deer Isle Stonington school department for the 201718 school budget. And it could be the first step toward what will be a very different school system for the island in the future.

Keeping the budget flat with no increase will require reductions in positions, a move that Superintendent Chris Elkington told Stonington selectmen on February 27 is necessary in the face of declining enrollments.

“We’re at the point where we should be consolidating,” Elkington said.

One of the things the school board is considering is shifting the school population to a K-6 school and a 7-12 school as it realigns the teaching staff.

“The staff at the high school will be expected to teach seventh through 12th graders as we look at readjusting and reallocating the staff,” the superintendent said.

Although it is still early in the budgeting process, Elkington told selectmen that the goal of a zero-increase budget has become more important since the district faces significant cuts in state subsidy.

Selectman Evelyn Duncan stressed that the reduction in state subsidy is not the result of errors on the part of the school department.