If the early numbers stick, Alna and Westport Island would see single-digit percent hikes in their fiscal year 2020 school tabs. Sheepscot Valley Regional School Unit 12 Superintendent of Schools Howie Tuttle shared Tuesday, cuts in pre-K to grade eight spending aim to ease cost hikes from higher student counts.

"The RSU 12 Finance Committee is proud to be recommending to the RSU 12 School Board a budget that continues to support quality programming while remaining fiscally conservative. The overall increase to forecasted expenses is 3.6 percent ... primarily caused by a 2 percent increase in the student count district-wide. Over half of these additional students are tuition high school students," Tuttle's email response states. "The RSU 12 administration and ... Finance Committee made reductions throughout the PK-8 budget in order to keep costs down and accommodate these additional ... students."

Under the district's cost-sharing formula, the $23 million budget draft has Alna's tab rising $12,586.38 or 1.3 percent over last year, Tuttle said. He said Westport Island's would rise $33,883.17, or 4.7 percent over last year.

The other towns' tabs would also rise, Palermo by half a percent; Whitefield, 1.9 percent; Windsor, 4.6 percent; Somerville, 4.9 percent; and Chelsea, 5.8 percent.

Alna's 2018 town-wide revaluation has lined the town up to get less state aid for education, according to information Tuttle provided. A chart showed the state figured in a 1.97 percent, or $1.5 million higher valuation, and anticipates giving the town 10.97 percent, $71,026, less than last year’s $662,683. Tuttle explained, "The more your town is valued per student, the less you receive in state aid ... per student. The Maine Department of Education says Alna's valuation went up. So, their subsidy for education went down."

A presentation Tuttle emailed lists the district’s budget priorities as maintaining health and wellness services, preventing bullying, keeping class sizes reasonable, educator training to aid student achievement; technology infrastructure, supporting pre-K, the capital improvement and transportation replacement plans, and school choice. It lists the regional service center, energy savings and other efforts  as saving hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The district plans a 6:30 p.m. May 16 budget meeting at Chelsea Elementary School and the referendum at polls district-wide June 11.