Decoding The Language in the New AOS98 Budget

Also considering the possibility of court challenges to LD 2003-HP 1489 some would say is a grab by the state of Home Rule authority.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Full disclosure- this article is by a legal layperson.

A recent story in the Boothbay Register about the expanded school budget delivers a sprinkle of catch-all terms such as “technology”, “curriculum”, “finance”, and “administrator”. Signals made in isolation allow the picture to be completed by each listener, analogous to a parlor game where a person whispers a word into the ear of whoever sits beside them, and at the end of the line, out comes a different word.

Concerns about overworked administrators, rising costs and financially strained taxpayers set the tone for an at times tense Alternative Organizational Structure (AOS) 98 school board meeting Dec. 6. The board came to discuss the proposed budget for the 2025 fiscal year, all while grappling with uncertainty as the district restructures its financial services.

The new proposed budget shows $2,103,704 in total expenditures, a $402,624 (23.7%) increase over the 2024 fiscal year.

Most of this year’s …