SKOWHEGAN — The Maine School Administrative District 54 budget for 2026–27 is up 4.78 percent, with a 2 percent increase in Skowhegan taxpayers’ share, according to Superintendent Jon Moody’s presentation to the Skowhegan Select Board.
The overall budget for fiscal 2027 is $53.9 million, with $16.8 million to be raised through local property taxes.
“School funding is not that different than your personal budget. There’s just a lot more inputs and a lot more outputs,” Moody said. “But at the end of the day, you can’t spend more than you take in, and you have to plan long term.”
Skowhegan’s additional local contribution — the amount the district is asking above what is required by the state funding formula — is down slightly from last year in the new budget.
Over the past eight years that Moody has served as superintendent, the local contribution has risen an average of 2 percent annually. Moody credited the slow rise to a deliberate strategy and a growing revenue stream from grants.
“That is long-range planning on the part of the board and leveraging a relatively conservative approach to providing high-quality education for kids,” Moody said.
The majority of the budget goes to pay staff members and their insurance. Insurance alone accounted for $830,000, Moody said.
“Employee costs are the key for our organization,” he said. “It’s not stuff you can cut. It’s people.”
State mandates for paid family medical leave contributions increased insurance costs 19 percent, while a new minimum wage requirement for education technology support staff added $240,000 to the budget compared to last year. Fuel, insurance and other inflationary costs also contributed to increases.
The district enrolls students with a poverty rate of nearly 78 percent — almost double the state average — yet exceeds state standards in English language arts and consistently outpaces expected growth in math, Moody said.
“I have to commend our staff for doing more with less consistently and dedicating their lives and careers to the kids,” he said. “We have an amazing staff.”
Moody also noted that the majority of staff “either went here or live here” and that the district is the third-largest employer in Somerset County, with almost 600 employees.
MSAD 54 spends about $4,230 less per pupil than the statewide average of $21,717, and administrative overhead runs roughly 21 percent below the state average — a figure Moody said reflects a deliberate choice to put dollars in classrooms rather than the central office.
Voters in the district’s six sending towns — Canaan, Cornville, Mercer, Norridgewock, Skowhegan and Smithfield — are scheduled to consider the budget at a district budget meeting Wednesday, May 20, at 7 p.m. at Skowhegan Area High School. The budget validation referendum is set for Tuesday, June 9, with Skowhegan polls open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
On June 10, voters are expected to consider a proposal to change how costs above the state formula — the additional local contribution — are shared among towns. This would shift the district away from the purely valuation-based formula that has been in place since MSAD 54 was founded in the 1960s.
The proposed change would move toward a 90-10 split between valuation and enrollment numbers to calculate contributions in two years, and then to 80-20 thereafter. Skowhegan, which now shoulders the largest share of that additional local cost, stands to see its contribution drop by about $25,000 if the measure passes.
Select Board Chair Whitney Cunliffe called it an excellent presentation.
“You clearly understand your numbers back, forth, and sideways,” he said. “It’s good to see that.”
The Skowhegan Select Board’s next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, May 12, at 5:30 p.m.
The meeting is slated to begin with six public hearings to consider changes to the solid waste ordinance, the site plan review ordinance, a cannabis moratorium, a homeless shelter and camping ordinance, the town of Skowhegan comprehensive plan, and the question of using artificial turf versus natural sod for the multiuse field.
