City Manager Steve Buck, left, addresses the City Council.
Photo: City of Sanford
Federal, State Funding Offers Relief, But More Cuts Requested
By Zendelle Bouchard
Federal funding and state revenue sharing will help Sanford with the next fiscal year’s budget, but City Council members are asking for further cuts to reduce the impact to taxpayers. The council was presented with overviews of both municipal and school budgets at a meeting on March 3.
On the municipal side, City Manager Steve Buck presented a “turn the page” budget that seeks to maintain existing services, programs, and infrastructure without adding new full-time positions or services.
The meat of the city’s budget are municipal services, which include operating expenses for all city departments but not the two libraries, outside agencies or debt service. Buck’s first draft, with some adjustments approved by the council on Feb. 24, reflects an increase of 6.29% over this year’s budget. Notable line-item increases include contracted wages and benefits and contracted services.
The biggest increase facing the city is in debt service, due to the construction of the new fire stations. But the recently awarded $5 million in Congressionally Directed Spending (CDS) funds from the federal government will offset the entire debt service for the fire stations for the next few years. Some $1.5 million of that money will be applied to the fiscal year 2026-27 budget. By the time the CDS funds are spent, the city will have retired the debt service on some other projects, offering a bit of breathing room in the budget, Buck said. (Read more about the CDS grant here: Sanford Secures $5 Million Federal Investment for New Fire-EMS Facilities.)
The state is also now projecting Sanford will get an additional $309,000 in revenue sharing. Without the increase in revenue sharing and the CDS funds, the municipal budget, fueled by the fire station debt, was poised to deliver a 14.04% net-to-taxation increase to Sanford taxpayers; with those funds, the proposed increase stands at 3.86%.
In presenting the School Department budget, Superintendent of Schools Matt Nelson unleashed a flurry of graphs and graphics to make his case that our schools are underfunded compared to other districts and our students are being shortchanged. He stressed that Sanford spends far less per pupil and has larger class sizes than similarly sized districts. This is despite Sanford receiving a high level of state funding based on the number of economically disadvantaged students in our community.
A big part of the projected increase in the FY26-27 school budget is health insurance; Nelson is projecting a 20% increase from Harvard Pilgrim, which covers most employees, and a 14% increase from Anthem.
Another big increase is in the capital reserve budget for future maintenance and repairs at Sanford High School, which is beginning to see some wear and tear to the building and grounds. A number of new and restored positions at the high school and Sanford Middle School are also being requested. (See our previous story on that.)
After more than a half a million dollars in cuts and adjustments by the School Committee, the budget request for the School Department reflects a 13.9% net-to-taxation increase. “We are not tone deaf to the challenges” in the current economy, Nelson said, but stressed that Sanford’s kids deserve a comparable education to other students in Maine to prepare them for the future.
After Tuesday’s presentation, City Councilor Ayn Hanselmann said she would like to see the School Department’s budget reduced to a 10% net-to-taxation increase, and the city’s to below 2%, in order to bring the total taxation increase down to 5%. Mayor Becky Brink agreed.
There will be a much more detailed presentation on the municipal budget on March 10 at 5 pm. The detailed presentation on the school budget is scheduled for March 17 at 5 pm, with the public hearing to follow at 7 pm during the regular City Council meeting. In the following weeks, the council will debate the budgets before voting to finalize the municipal budget on April 7. They will also vote on the school budget that will go before voters on June 9. All meetings are open to the public, recorded and live streamed.
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