Carrie Jones

Jan 30, 2026

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by First National Wealth Management.

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BAR HARBOR—The town’s warrant committee and town council met January 27 for the second of many joint budget workshops, this time focusing on the town’s school budget.

“In creating this budget we were very sensitive to the fact that we were building a new school that was costing the town quite a bit of money,” Dr. Heather Weir Webster, Conners Emerson principal told the group during the evening meeting. Moving into the building, which is currently under construction, she said, was going to be a large undertaking.

The school made a 10% reduction in supplies, conferences, books, and equipment in the budget because of that. Other major costs (such as salaries, benefits, tuition) are contractural. She can not influence those.

“Next year will kind of be the year of unknowns,” Dr. Webster said as they prepared for a potential move into the building in the first half of the next school year.

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 current buildings’ recent problems.

The proposed town appropriation to the Conners Emerson budget increases by $918,589 to just under $9 million, an increase of 11.49%. The total budget-to-budget increase is 6.71%.

Combined, the regular instruction and special education instruction increase approximately $530,000. The special education budget has a higher percentage increase.

The overall education budget (including the high school) has a current draft increase of just over $1 million to $12,957,430. The county assessment increases by $118,112 to approximately $1,430,000. The MDI High School budget is currently expected to increase by $286,160 to just over $5 million. The AOS budget is embedded within the Conners-Emerson budget and high school budget.

The school system does not have final numbers for the state subsidy, but anticipates extra tuition with an additional student coming in to Bar Harbor from a town that does not have its own elementary school.

The state allows up to a $17,226 2025-2026 elementary school tuition rate in Bar Harbor.

“So we charge them $10,000 and it costs us $30 (thousand)?” newly appointed warrant committee member Kevin Knopp asked. This ($30,000) is the approximate amount of the school’s total budget divided by the number of students.

“I will need to ask the superintendent about how the tuition rate is set. I know that it’s been about $10,000 for a while so I can inquire about that,” Dr. Webster said.

School Superintendent Michael Zboray was not at the meeting.

Regular instruction costs are increased mostly due to contracted increases in wages and benefits, Dr. Webster said. Enrollment has been somewhat stable, hovering around 320 and 330 students, but this year was a small kindergarten year.

“To have the same four bus drivers is amazing,” Dr. Webster said of the school’s contract with Cyr, a bus and driver provider.

Transportation and buses is increasing by $26,773 to $474,751. Most of that increase is the transportation contract with Cyr and special purpose transportation.

Knopp asked about the percentage of students who require special education services and if there were any budgetary comparisons with other schools for that portion of the budget or per student cost. Those answers were not immediately available, however, Dr. Webster said that student cost comparisons depend on factors involved.

“Whatever stats you have that you compare some of your key statistics to other districts would be helpful,” Knopp said.

Dr. Webster said that she’d been looking, even that same day, about other districts looking for comparable schools and she’d share that with him. Knopp also asked for a list of school employee wages this year compared to the year prior.

Councilor Steve Boucher asked about the teachers’ salaries. “As far as being competitive with other schools your size do you have any idea where we stand statewide. Are we a desirable location?”

Dr. Webster said the teachers’ contracts was designed to make Bar Harbor more competitive compared to schools in Camden or Falmouth.

“We were kind of seeing a slump in applications coming in for schools, which had never happened in our area before,” Dr. Webster said. She said two teachers who applied this year mentioned that the salary was a big reason why they applied at Conners-Emerson.

Another new warrant committee member, Elissa Chesler asked about potentially cost-sharing the school librarian’s position. Dr. Webster said she wouldn’t want to reduce the time the school’s librarian spends at Conners Emerson.

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SNOW PANTS NEEDED

From the school:

Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who donated snowpants this week! We could still use more, especially sizes 7/8 and 9/10.

Please bring in snow pants that are in gently-used condition without rips/tears, and please wash items before bringing them to school.

Snow pants can be dropped off at the front office or with the nurses.

THANK YOU!

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LINKS TO LEARN MORE

To watch the meeting.

Disclosure: Shaun Farrar (of the Bar Harbor Story and my husband) is an elected member to the town’s warrant committee. His term ends this year. Much like all married humans, we do not always agree on topics (including what to listen to for music). He did not assist me with this article and since we’re a team of two, any errors are mine alone.

Corrections! My one working eye squinting this morning somehow made me mistake Misha Mytar for Siobhan Ryan in a photo. I’m going to claim my half-blind nature and the fact that they are both beautiful. I’ve fixed that at 8:42 a.m. Many thanks for the help! Similarly, I attributed an off-camera voice to Councilor David Kief when it was Warrant Committee member Kevin Knopp. That has been corrected at 10:19 a.m. and my burn-out self is going to take a rest. So many apologies to Misha, Siobhan, David, and Kevin

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