Regional School Unit 73 (Spruce Mountain) directors on Thursday gave final approval to the proposed 2026-27 budget, sending the spending plan to a budget meeting on April 2. The board also voted to support a proposal to establish a sports hall of fame for the district.
The budget increases spending by 3.18 percent over the 2025-2026 budget, a bit below the regional inflation rate, Scott Albert, superintendent of schools, told the board.
Total spending would be $26,836,643, up $827,290 from the current budget of $26,009,334.
The budget now goes to a vote at the annual budget meeting at 6 p.m. on April 2 at Spruce Mountain High School. If the budget is approved by vote at that meeting, it goes to referendum on April 28 in the three towns for final approval. RSU 73 serves Jay, Livermore and Livermore Falls.
The final budget figure came after a seesaw process that took up most or all of three board meetings beginning in late February. Public attendance at those meetings varied from half a dozen to about 30 people.
The original budget that Albert presented to the board contained cuts of $602,862 from requests by administrators. On Feb. 26, the board voted 8-5 for Albert to return on March 5 with an added $200,000 in cuts.
The cuts Albert presented on March 5 included the pay-and-benefits package of a science teacher who is retiring and an out-of-district placement for a special-needs student who will not need the placement. The unfilled teaching job would have saved about $123,000, and the special-needs placement about $36,000.
Albert also found a couple of duplicated items in the proposed spending, totaling about $9,000, and made some additional cuts to athletics at the middle school and to transportation.
At least 10 people, including athletes, teachers and parents of graduates, spoke at the meeting on March 5, each opposing proposed cuts.
At that meeting, on a motion by Jay Director Elaine Fitzgerald, the board voted to cut $55,239, rather than $200,000, leaving in the money for the science teacher position.
Most of the final cuts were $45,329 from special education, which includes the duplicated items and the money saved on the out-of-district placement, as well as $10,000 from transportation, which might reflect a saving from putting a second propane-powered bus into operation, Albert said.
Fitzgerald had been one of the five directors to vote against the motion on Feb. 26 requesting $200,000 more in cuts, and on March 5, she moved to adopt Albert’s original budget, less the savings in special education and transportation.
On Thursday, the 11 directors in attendance signed the warrants for the budget meeting.
Also on Thursday, the directors voted to support a proposal by Clint Brooks, a former school director and owner of the former Beef Barn butcher shop in Jay, to establish a Spruce Mountain Sports Hall of Fame.
Initially called the Tiger-Andies-Phoenix Sports Hall of Fame, the recognition would cover athletes not only from Spruce Mountain High School but also those who played as Jay Tigers or as Livermore Falls Andies.
Jay, Livermore and Livermore Falls schools merged in 2011 into RSU 73 and adopted the Spruce Mountain and Phoenix names for the sports teams.
Fitzgerald said, “Anything that unites our Tigers and Andies is good for our Phoenix.”
Brooks said the idea for a Spruce Mountain hall came to him when he visited the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum at Cooperstown, New York. He formed a group to pursue the idea, and it consulted other groups who had started similar projects, especially the sports boosters at Mount Blue High School in Farmington.
Answering a question from Director Andrew Sylvester, Livermore, Brooks said the group was not asking for space to set up displays, at least not in the first year or so.
Brooks also said his group would ask the Spruce Mountain sports boosters to raise the money for the start-up, which he said he expected would be about $3,000. The Mount Blue Hall cost about $4,000 to start and about $1,500 a year to maintain, he said. Mount Blue is a larger district than Spruce Mountain.
Director Don Emery, Livermore Falls, asked Brooks if other activities such as band and drama could be included in the hall of fame.
Brooks replied that the people starting the Mount Blue Athletics Hall of Fame had discussed but not adopted that idea. He said he hoped boosters of other activities would start their own halls of fame that eventually could merge into one large Spruce Mountain Hall.
Albert also told the board that Attorney Jack Baldacci had filed a motion in court to dismiss a lawsuit against RSU 73 over its policy prohibiting transgender students from participating in the sports matching their gender identity. Albert said the $2,500 cost of the filing was covered by the district’s insurance company.
