As New Conners Emerson Rises, Bar Harbor Looks for Ways to Offset Taxpayers’ Burdens

Carrie Jones

Nov 06, 2025

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Acadia Psychiatry.

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BAR HARBOR—As construction crews build between the exterior walls of a new Conners Emerson School, town officials are also constructing next year’s budget, one that could increase local taxes, as Bar Harbor works to balance rising costs, staff pay goals, and state funding uncertainties.

Inside the same room where math club meets, with information pages and reports filled with spreadsheets, construction updates, and numbers, Bar Harbor school leaders this week confronted a familiar problem: how to fund a top-tier education and a new school building while trying to keep the tax burden to a minimum.

The Conners Emerson school budget will likely cause a bit more burden on the Bar Harbor property owner’s tax bills this upcoming budget cycle if the draft proposed budget stays as it is.

Multiple factors are impacting the budget. There is a potential carryover of about $230,000, which is about $300,000 less than last year.

This means they may have to raise a little more via taxes, School Superintendent Michael Zboray told school committee members on Monday.

Next year is the last year of the teacher contracts and the goal is to bring teacher salaries into the 90th percentile, Zboray reminded committee members. So teacher and staff are receiving raises in the two-year process to bring them into that percentile. This impacts the budget.

There are few budget areas that Principal Dr. Heather Weir Webster can manipulate. She slashed the lines that she can influence by 10% across the board. Other major costs like salaries, benefits, tuition are contractural. She can not influence those.

Dr. Weir Webster made a plea that the school continue to contract with Cyr for its bus drivers, who she praised highly and was thankful for their continued steady service for years.

Some other schools on the island have been negatively impacted by bus driver shortages.

Dr. Weir Webster said, “Having the same bus drivers is such a dream.”

Special education has two out-of-district placements and one may return, which causes some uncertainty about the budget. The draft budget estimates approximately $825,000 in state subsidy, which is influenced by some special education costs.

The school’s state subsidy is based on how many students were in special education and then they are reimbursed for that.

Dr. Weir Webster also explained that the $100,000 in the budget for the school buildings, which are being replaced is for standard costs such as fire protection and other contracted needs.

Potential issues due to health insurance costs as Anthem and Northern Light spar over its contract are still unknown. Moving costs to get equipment and furniture from the current two buildings into the new building are also not currently in the budget.

The current draft sees the town appropriation to increase 14.7% or an additional $1,175,249 to bring the total appropriation to $9.1 million.

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SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION COSTS

The town property tax payers are also funding the new school, a cost which is not included in the school budget, but in the town’s bond payment.

In June 2023, Bar Harbor voters overwhelmingly passed (1,005 to 502) a $58 million bond to rebuild the ailing schools and support the town’s K-8 population. Broken boilers, rain inundation, a wall pulling away from the foundation, poor air exchanges, limited classroom space, and a lack of insulation are just some of the buildings’ recent problems.

In July, Zboray announced that the school construction project’s $2.475 million contingency fund has been used and was over budget.

The fund is there specifically as padding in the approximately $58-million project that will construct a new elementary school in Bar Harbor and replace the aging and deteriorating Conners Emerson schools.

The contingency fund had been used approximately 30% of the way toward the project’s completion and there is another $500,000 (approximately) over budget beyond that fund that has been used.

Since then, Zboray, Dr. Weir Webster, and the construction team have been looking for costs savings and looking at potential change orders.

Tariffs and potential tariffs are still raising construction costs for construction of a new school that will replace the Conners-Emerson School even as Zboray tries to find ways to lower costs and another committee continues long-term fundraising efforts.

When asked how it was going, Monday, Zboray responded, “It’s being built.”

There were some soft chuckles from school board members.

A certificate of occupancy could occur October 18, 2026. That’s the date when people can be inside the building who are not contractors. The school community is anticipating going into the building a week or more after that.

Zboray met with Competitive Energy Services about tax credits relating to geothermal use. This could potentially cut the project’s $500,000 overage in half. They will likely know the amount by the new year.

The town has received some credit for the steel tariffs, Zboray said. However, some lumber used for the millwork in the classrooms is coming from Canada. They do not currently know what those tariffs will be on that lumber.

Overall for the month of October thanks to some savings, it’s been the slowest month in terms of needs for getting any extras.

“We came out of this month, $7,000 in terms of what the needs are,” Zboray said.

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FUNDRAISING UPDATE

Fundraising Committee Chair Lilea Simis told the committee that since taxpayers will be paying for the bond for the school for 30 years, the committee is looking toward creating four or five yearly events to support that cost as well as looking toward donors to help support decreasing the cost to people in town.

Earlier this year, the Bar Harbor Town Council waived permitting fees to help hire a consultant. The committee has created a campaign to reach out to people who visit Bar Harbor. So far this year, there has been a float in the July Fourth parade and a booth in the ball field during the July Fourth festivities. The committee has put post cards in bed and breakfasts and coasters in Side Street Cafe, Links Pub, and Ocean Properties. Those materials have ways to donate on them.

“I had spent quite a long time trying to find some funding with a professional consultant because I wasn’t getting anywhere with just my smile and nice handwriting,” Simis said. “This summer was kind of a feel-it-out kind of thing to see how it work.”

This past weekend was a pumpkin walk hosted at Evergreen Yurts, which Simis said was a joyous event and a welcome relief after fundraising angst.

“I don’t have millions of dollars to offer you,” Simis said. “But we do feel there is a lot of enthusiasm. Every conversation leads us to other conversations. The connections have been very exciting, but it’s a very challenging situation, being a public school.”

The school has been paid for through the town bond. But the property owners are paying for the bond for the next three decades. That makes fundraising a bit different, Simis said.

“Most people feel like that they are supporting it through their tax dollars and so I’m really trying to look at it as it’s about the children; it’s about a building. It’s about a heartbeat of our town. It’s about our community. It’s about keeping families here with children. It’s about keeping families here that serve the people that come to our town and helping us stay here. There’s a lot to it. It’s exciting work. It’s hard,” Simis said.

Bar Harbor is a low-receiving town for state funding. It did not receive funds from the state to build the school.

“Anything we do, anything we bring in, will hel p pay down the bond,” Simis said.

“Education is a common good,” Zboray said. “We all need to insure that our kids have a place to learn and teachers have a decent place to teach in.”

A small leak in the current Emerson building roof near the seventh and eighth grade bathrooms was likely due to a heavy amount of rain and wind direction. The school will continue to monitor the leak in the aging building.

“It wasn’t a huge leak. It just took a bucket or two underneath it,” Dr. Weir Webster said.

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SCHOOL CULTURE

“Every month is big,” Dr. Weir Webster told board members when she began explaining the activities and spirit that the school experienced in October.

Led by the school band, the students marched in the annual Halloween parade through town last Thursday. Dr. Weir Webster thanked the town’s fire and police departments for their help.

Also for Halloween activities, some homerooms decorated doors. There was Ms. Blank’s Coraline door and Ms. Roths’ Ghostbusters door.

For the early release day lunch, staff had a Desert-a-pa-looza.

Tanglewood Marionettes will visit on November 14. The play will focus on Perseus and Medusa, which ties in with the sixth graders’ focus on Percy Jackson books by Rick Riordan. Those books focus on Greek gods in fictional settings. One book in the series has a scene that occurs in Acadia National Park.

The Chewonki Foundation visits November 18 to present “bats of the world” to the fifth graders who are learning about echolocation and “animal adaptations” to the kindergarteners and first graders.

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EXTRA-CURRICULAR UPDATES

Winter sports begin soon and the 55 sixth graders boosts the athletic team numbers, Dr. Weir Webster said.

“We will have a girls A and B for basketball, boys A and 2 B teams for basketball, and an assistant coach for cheering to accommodate the interest,” she said.

The school’s two math teams meet on either Tuesday or Thursday. One attends competitions and the other doesn’t. Both are coached by Joel Graber.

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PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

The school will be working with Amanda Wilson for a Monday district professional development day focusing on managing classroom behaviors. They’ve also had their first sharing and learning series on school conversations we have at school.

“We have identified conversations as our school goal, looking at conversations with students, parents, and colleagues,” Dr. Weir Webster wrote in her principal’s report.

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PTSA

The PTSA is in the middle of announcing winners for its big fundraising raffle. The group has raised over $32,000 which funds field trips, classroom experiences and supplies.

“They are unbelievable,” Dr. Weir Webster said of the work the group does for the school.

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LINKS TO LEARN MORE

As Bar Harbor Builds a New School, Costs Climb and Savings Are Hard-Won

Carrie Jones

·

Oct 8

Read full story

The fundraising committee accepts donations on this website, learn more: https://www.connersemersonschool.org/o/ces/page/new-school

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