Public Meeting Will Decide $19.6M MDI High School Budget.

Shaun Farrar

Mar 31, 2026

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by First National Bank.

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MOUNT DESERT ISLAND REGION—Local school budgets make up a large portion of the town budgets for all four towns on Mount Desert Island. Every year, these budgets are proposed and then scrutinized by warrant committees and select boards/councils before being approved to be put on a town’s town meeting warrant.

Each of these local school budgets include parts of the overall AOS 91 budget and the MDI High School budget.

Every year members of these municipal bodies say, “there is nothing we can do about it,” or “it’s out of our hands” in regard to these two budget pieces, but registered voters can have an impact on these budgets.

As registered voters, residents have the annual opportunity to weigh in and to approve, or not approve, those school budgets at their town’s annual meeting. Similarly, both the high school budget and the AOS budget are approved at public town meeting style events prior to the town meetings.

The high school’s budget meeting where voters of the four island towns can have that approval or rejection is on April 1 at 6 p.m. at MDI High School.

While not under the jurisdiction of any one town government, the high school board is made up of the five members of each of the four individual town school committees that are residents’ representatives in school matters, including the budget.

Only 10 of these school committee members, three from Bar Harbor, three from Mt. Desert, two from Southwest Harbor, and two from Tremont, can vote on issues for the high school board throughout the year. These elected school committee members are the towns’ representation in school-related matters but just like any other municipal official, they may make decisions that residents don’t agree with.

The high school board approving a budget does not ratify it. The high school budget must still go through a public meeting process where the public (registered voters of any of the four MDI towns) gets the opportunity to attend, ask questions, and vote on whether or not the budget gets final approval. This is the opportunity for registered voters of each of the towns to have a say in the high school budget and how it affects their property tax burden.

In the last few years, public participation outside of school board members and school administration and staff, has been incredibly low.

For example, at the AOS annual public budget approval meeting, which has no quorum requirement and which occurred on Wednesday, January 21, had a total of 32 voters and very few of them were not related to the school system by virtue of being a board member or employee.

The now approved FY26/27 AOS budget of $3,645,620 is an increase of $246,363 over this current year’s budget of $3,399,257.

One difference in the AOS annual public budget meeting is that all of the towns that are a part of the AOS are allowed to participate rather than just the four Mount Desert Island towns for the high school’s annual public budget meeting. Another difference is that the high school’s annual public budget meeting does have a quorum requirement of 10 voters total and there must be at least one from each of the four island towns.

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TOWN ASSESSMENTS

In terms of town assessments, Bar Harbor has the largest increase by percentage (and dollar amount) for the proposed FY26/27 MDI High School budget with a 6.86% increase. Southwest Harbor, who had the largest increase by percentage for the FY25/26 budget actually decreased for the proposed FY26/27 budget by .96%.

The overall proposed FY26/27 budget is $19,593,247 which is a $3,420,382 increase over the FY25/26 budget of $16,172,865. The total proposed assessment to the towns for FY26/27 is $12,912,075 which is a $531,301 increase over the FY25/26 budget town assessment of $12,380,774.

Each town’s portion of the high school budget is based upon a formula that uses the town’s assessed value (according to the state) and the enrollment of students from each town. Based on 100%, the state assessment carries 67% of that weight and the student enrollment of each town carries 33% of that weight.

By town, the proposed FY26/27 assessment percentages to be paid by each town followed by the current year (FY25/26) assessment percentages are below.

• Bar Harbor – 39.47% – 38.52%
• Mount Desert – 34.40% – 34.71%
• S.W. Harbor – 15.07% – 15.87%
• Tremont – 11.06% – 10.90%

The total proposed FY26/27 assessments, assessment increase from FY25/26, and the percentage of the assessment increase from FY25/26 to each town are below.

• Bar Harbor – $5,096,396 – $327,059 – 6.86%
• Mount Desert – $4,441,754 – $144,821 – 3.37%
• S.W. Harbor – $1,945,850 – (-$18,807) – (-.96%)
• Tremont – $1,428,075 – $78,228 – 5.80%

By town, the additional taxpayer burden per $100,000 of property value for the proposed FY26/27 budget is below.

• Bar Harbor – $11.76
• Mount Desert – $4.78
• S.W. Harbor – (-$1.65)
• Tremont – $9.86

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WARRANT ARTICLES AND INCREASES, IF ANY

By warrant article number the increases or decreases are as follows.

Article 2, “regular instruction” has a proposed increase of $220,202. This brings the FY25/26 budget of $5,693,762 to a proposed $5,913,964 for FY26/27.

Article 3, “special education” has a proposed increase of $313,634. This brings the FY25/26 budget of $2,767,829 to a proposed $3,081,463 for FY26/27.

Article 4, “career and technical education” has a proposed decrease of $20,000. This brings the FY25/26 budget of $50,000 down to a proposed $30,000 for FY26/27.

Article 5, “other instruction, co-curricular/summer school” has a proposed increase of $92,301. This brings the FY25/26 budget of $1,033,451 to a proposed $1,125,752 for FY26/27.

Article 6, “student and staff support” has a proposed increase of $104,187. This brings the FY25/26 budget of $1,974,046 to a proposed $2,078,233 for FY26/27.

Article 7, “system administration” (MDIHS share of AOS expenses) has a proposed increase of $23,643. This brings the FY 25/26 budget of $331,046 to a proposed $354,689 for FY26/27.

Article 8, “school administration” has a proposed increase of $42,237. This brings the FY 25/26 budget of $866,444 to a proposed $908,681 for FY26/27.

Article 9, “transportation and buses” has a proposed decrease of $113,193. This brings the FY 25/26 budget of $648,727 to a proposed $535,534 for FY26/27.

Article 10, “facilities maintenance-operations and maintenance of the plant/capital outlay” has a proposed increase of $2,757,371. This brings the FY 25/26 budget of $2,507,560 to a proposed $5,264,931 for FY26/27.

A large portion of the increase in this article is due to a planned refurbishment of the track.

According to MDI High School Principal Matt Haney, “The large increase due to the track replacement isn’t leading to much of an increase in the costs assessed to the towns. That’s because the board of trustees has been planning for this project for a number of years and has set aside money in a reserve that offsets the budget increase.”

Article 11, “debt service and other commitments” has a proposed expenditure for FY26/27 of $00.00 which is the same as FY25/26.

Article 12, “other expenditures, food service” has no proposed increase. This keeps the proposed FY26/27 budget of $150,000 the same as the FY25/26 budget of $150,000.

The proposed total for articles 2-12 for FY26/27 is $19,443,247 which is an increase of $3,420,382 over the FY25/26 amount of $16,022,865 for articles 2-12.

However, there is another warrant article, number 17, which is a proposed $150,000 appropriation for adult education. This brings the total proposed budget to $19,593,247, which is an increase of $3,420,382 over the FY25/26 amount of $16,172,865.

The full warrant is viewable below.

Mdi High School Warrant For Budget Meeting 2026

224KB ∙ PDF file

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