BINGHAM — The industrial arts program for high school and middle school students is on the chopping block.

It’s part of an effort to cut costs and appease residents when they vote for a second time on the school district’s budget. The School Administrative District 13 board has found more than $100,000 in savings since voters rejected the budget at the polls June 14.

Moscow residents defeated the budget by more than a 2-to-1 margin, torpedoing the entire plan even though Bingham residents approved it.

Board Chairman Brian Malloy, of Bingham, said he understands why Moscow residents are upset: They are being required to pay more even though they have fewer students.

“I think Moscow is very upset that they’re having to pick up more and more and more,” Malloy said. “That has to do with their valuation skyrocketing. … I understand why they don’t feel good about it, but we have no control over the state (funding) formula.”

Superintendent Virginia Rebar said board members have come up with several new cost-cutting proposals:

* eliminating the industrial arts program to save between $50,000 and $60,000;

* using carry-over funds totaling $47,000 toward the district’s revenue;

* and changing the duties of an alternative education teacher position, for savings of about $11,000.

School board members, who serve Bingham and Moscow, may discuss the proposed cuts at their next meeting, scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday at Quimby Middle School in Bingham.

The budget meeting, in which voters have the opportunity to change proposed amounts, will be held at 7 p.m. July 26 at the middle school.

The second step in the budget-approval process will be a closed-curtain referendum vote, held between 1 and 6 p.m. Aug. 2, at Quimby Middle School and the Moscow Town Office.

Shuttering the industrial arts program would eliminate one teacher, Nienke Adamse, who has fought at previous board meetings to keep the program running.

A phone call and email to Adamse on Tuesday were not returned.

Some board members argue that it doesn’t make sense to continue paying for a program with few students. Just four high school and eight middle school students are signed up for the fall semester, according to Malloy. All seventh- and eighth- graders take industrial arts for one quarter, and high school students also have the option of enrolling.

“I think the board feels we’re paying a lot of money for a program that’s only servicing a few people,” Malloy said. However, “there is opposition to closing it, and the board may decide to look at it again on Tuesday.”

The board proposes to use a carry-over sum of $47,000 to help ease the burden on taxpayers. The district discovered a bond payment already has been made and therefore will not apply to the 2011-12 budget, Rebar said.

Also, a half-time alternative education teacher position will be changed to a full-time education technician position. Because the half-time teacher receives more pay than a full-time ed tech, there will be a savings of about $11,000, Rebar said.

With about $108,000 in additional savings, the total budget is now about $3,006,200. That’s a decrease of 3 percent, or $81,500, from last year’s total.

The district is projecting a reduction of nearly $167,000 in state education aid.

“The state has required us to come up with a lot more locally in order to get the state share that has been reduced,” Malloy said. “That part of the budget we can’t do anything about.”

He estimated the school board has control over about one-third of the budget.

The budget provides no pay increases for teachers or administrators. It cuts an education technician position from the high school library, eliminates junior varsity basketball and a strength-training program and reduces funding for both a social worker and special education instructor.

The district serves 140 students from Bingham, 70 from Moscow and 41 from the surrounding unorganized territories who pay tuition.

The school board has requested an estimate from the state of how much the district could save if it closed Quimby Middle School. Any savings from a school closure probably would go toward the 2012-13 school year.

Erin Rhoda — 612-2368

erhoda@centralmaine.com

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