CES Cares Program Helps Local Families This Winter
Dec 22, 2024
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by The Witham Family Hotels Charitable Fund.
BAR HARBOR—The Conners Emerson School Board and Mount Desert Island Regional School System Board both approved budgets on Monday, December 16, for FY 2025, which begins in July for Bar Harbor. The next steps for the school board’s budget is for it to be presented to the town and for the Bar Harbor Town Council and Bar Harbor Warrant Committee to review it.
The Conners Emerson Budget includes a portion of the school system’s budget, which is $3,399,257 and covers the superintendent’s office as well as the staff in his office. Their work is for the entire system and supports the schools within the system. The school budgets from different schools in the system all reflect that budget, which is increasing by almost 23%.
The Bar Harbor school budget will shoulder approximately $60,000 to $75,000 of that increase. The amount of the school system budget that a school supports is related to its size. Bar Harbor’s current support for that budget is $189,253. Next year, Bar Harbor’s proposed portion of that budget is $237,978.
Salaries, benefits, and two new positions (an assistant director of early childhood education and human resources officer) make up the bulk of that increase. At the same meeting that the budget was approved the Mount Desert Island Regional School System Board extended Zboray’s contract to June 2028.
At Conners Emerson’s school meeting, Principal Dr. Heather Weir Webster looked at the school’s capital improvement in relationship to the school construction schedule, the 80 staff members, and existing debt service. She did, however, keep $10,000 for roof repairs and smaller leaks that might happen on the existing buildings as well as money for the school’s remaining unfixed boiler.
“We always want to have a little cushion in there,” Webster said of the boiler. Last year the aging school had multiple roof leaks and a major boiler issue in one of its two boilers, which provide heat. “Hopefully, that won’t happen and we’ll be able to put that in the reserve.”
The board finalized the budget that will be presented to the Bar Harbor Town Council and Warrant Committee in January. The current budget for 2024-2025 is $7,605,474 for town appropriation with total revenues of $8,805,537.
Next year’s proposed budget is a total of $9,401,005 and town appropriation of $8,085,301. That town appropriation is an increase of $479,828 or 6.31%.
There is a 7% increase across the board for administrators’ salaries within the school system, Zboray said during the Conners Emerson meeting.
He said that teachers’ contracts were passed with salary increases to attract and retain teachers. The top teachers’ salaries were bumping up toward the salary of administrators, he said, which is the reason for the 7% increase.
Some board members expressed concern that there were limited ways to keep the budget down when the budget is influenced by binding contracts as well as the AOS budget and high school budget.
PTSA NEWS:
The next PTSA meeting: Tuesday January 7, 3:15-4:15 p.m. (more info here)
CES CARES PROGRAM: We have some families in our Conners Emerson School community who struggle during the winter months. In 2018 the PTSA introduced CES CARES, a program that distributes gift cards to help support CES families in need at this time of year. The holidays are a perfect time to spread goodwill, so if you are able, please consider making a donation to lend a helping hand to members of our CES family. 100% OF YOUR DONATION will go towards purchasing gift cards to be distributed to families who could use some extra support around the holidays. Please send donations to the school in an envelope marked “CES CARES” with a student, drop off at the main office, or mail donations to:
Conners Emerson School
Attn: PTSA
11 Eagle Lake Road
Bar Harbor, ME 04609
Checks can be made out to “CES PTSA” with “CES CARES” in the memo.
Thank you for supporting our school community!
MITTEN & GLOVE DRIVE!: As the temperatures drop, we are still in need of mittens & gloves (new, or clean & gently-used) for our nurses to provide to CES students. A collection box is located by the main office (Conners building) for easy drop-off. Thank you, and please help spread the word!
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