By Cliff White

Staff Writer

The Gorham Town Council has taken a stand.

At an April 15 special town meeting, the council accepted changes recommended by Town Manager David Cole to the proposed municipal budget eliminating two town positions.

Earlier this month, the council asked the School Committee to reduce the school district’s proposed $30.3 million budget. Last week, the committee approved a revised $29.6 million budget, the result of the elimination of at least 14 full-time positions, Gorham School District Business Manager Leighton O’Conner said.

According to several town councilors and O’Conner, together, the revised budgets will not increase the local tax rate over last year’s rates. 

“This year, with the economy what it is, that was our number one priority,” Councilor Brenda Caldwell said. “My feeling is, people have enough extra expenses with paying for food and gas, that we couldn’t ask them to pay any more taxes than they are already paying.”

The town positions set to be eliminated include the town engineer and the compliance officer,  for a savings of $54,506 and $52,125, respectively. Cole’s proposal calls for the consolidation of those two positions into a single position, but the council did not act on the proposal, Caldwell said. A proposal to eliminate the position of assistant code enforcement officer, for a savings of $59,618, was rejected by a 4-3 council vote.

Councilor Michael Phinney, who introduced the amendment which preserved the position, said its elimination would have gone too far. 

“I was afraid our services would suffer,” Phinney said.

Council Phil Csoros agreed.

“When we have delays in the process due to not having enough manpower, it actually costs the town money, because it delays collection of new tax revenue,” Csoros said.

Council Caldwell opposed the amendment.

“I went along with the town manager’s recommendation,” Caldwell said. “He knows a lot more about how to run the town than I do.”

Other cuts agreed upon by the council included the elimination of a reference librarian position at Baxter Memorial Library and a reduction of staffing levels in the library, for a combined savings of $25,244. The council also voted to replace a Fire Department Administrative Assistant with a secretary, and use the work release program of the Windham Correctional Facility to do janitorial work at the public safety building, for a combined savings of about $14,000.

Final approval of the budget will be debated at the May 6 town council meeting. Town residents have the power to institute a recall on any decision the town council makes, but Csoros believes the council has crafted, “a budget acceptable to the community.”

“If there’s any kind of a silver lining to difficult budget times, it’s that it forces the council to take a closer look at every single expense,” Csoros said. “I think the cuts are definitely painful for the town – we’re not cutting frivolous positions here – but I think the cuts were made in areas we can get by with.”

The council will meet with the school committee to discuss the budget package on May 7. Following the council’s request for cuts, the School Committee approved the elimination of four and a half teaching positions, nine educational technicians, seven school nutritionists, and four administrators, O’Connor said.

O’Connor’s occupies one of the positions set for elimination. The others include the curriculum coordinator, the transportation director and the E.T.E.P. coordinator, who assists coordination of student teachers from the University of Southern Maine. 

Of the four teaching positions proposed to be eliminated, one will come from Gorham High School, one from Gorham Middle School, one from Village Elementary School and one from Narragansett Elementary School. 

The total savings of the cuts is about $700,000, enough to bring the district to the point where it would accrue to additional tax burden on resident, O’Connor said.

“The decisions were made by a number of people within the school district, who worked as a team to insure the cuts would have the minimum impact possible within the district,” O’Connor said. “There’s no question it will have some impact, that everybody will be working a little bit harder, but the administrative team chose areas that would have the least impact on the delivery of educational services.”

O’Connor said he was sad to be leaving but understood why the decisions were made.

“I’ve enjoyed my time here,” O’Connor said. “These are harsh economic times. It’s too bad, but this is happening all over the state.”