“All politics are local” and that means the decisions made by our local town representatives are the decisions that will affect our lives directly. 

It is budget season in Hope, Maine, and numbers are being crunched and elected officials are going through each department’s budget requests knowing that the property taxes of Hope residents counted at 1,710 representing 670 households will be expected to fund the town municipality, which includes Hope Administration, Public Safety, Public Works, Hope Elementary School, and CSD Five Towns budgets.  

By far the largest requested budget submitted to the Town for review is the Hope Elementary School budget of $3,843,281, representing roughly 65 percent of the entire budget for the Hope municipality.

The HES budget request will serve 141 students (latest available numbers.) representing $27,257 per student.

Hope's obligation to the Five Towns CSD, which is not negotiable, and serves approximately 77 students (latest available numbers), is $968,678 and represents a cost of $12,580.23 per student. The proposed total budget expenses for the Town of Hope for 2025-2026 are projected at $7,380,468.

These are large numbers for a small town that collects only residential property taxes from 670 households. 

I think it is only fair to disclose that I am a sitting Hope Town Select Board member, but I write this editorial as a retired tax-paying resident living as many do in Hope, on a fixed income. I am not acting in anyway as a representative of the Town.

The Select Board as a body has no authority or control over the School Committee budget or processes used to determine that budget and as individuals all we can do is ask questions and vote up or down for the budget at the Town Meeting.

 On April 10, 2025, in a public meeting at the Town Office the School Committee budget was reviewed by the Budget Committee. The Select Board was in attendance in a non-authoritative capacity and some members of the public attended. Honoring protocol, the Budget Committee Chairman presided. 

The School Committee budget consists of seven document size pages, some containing as many as 50 line items per page. The budget was produced in small print; it was not numbered by line item and there was no summary information supplied that could help understand the coded lines represented.

When asked by the Budget Committee why the format was so difficult to read and decode, the explanation offered by the School Committee was that a new program format had been used. This new programming format produced a budget document that was neither transparent nor user-friendly and as a partial result, in my opinion, the budget was not thoroughly explored by the Budget Committee.

At the end of a 3.5 hour meeting the Chairman, having declined the opportunity to review each budgetary line item, deferred to the “experts” on the School Committee on how best to apply the $3,848,281 funding request. This means that Hope taxpayers are going to be asked to vote on a budget the Budget Committee, the Town appointed watch dog, does not completely understand! I don’t think dereliction of duty is too strong of an admonition.

This is what I understand after poring through the numbers and after numerous consultations: 

$2,278,501.72 is the appropriation HES receives from the State of Maine through Essential Programs and Services funding. The Town’s contribution to the total cost of funding public education from Pre-K through Grade 8 is $1,121,067.62 and is the number the Town must raise as determined by the State, to receive EPS funding.

The School Committee, in a separate 4-0 vote amongst themselves, recommended raising and appropriating Additional Local Funds (more Hope Taxpayer money) of $1,414,738.38 (The additional local funds are those locally raised over and above the Town’s local contribution to the total cost of funding Pre-K toGgrade 8, described in the Essential Programs and Services Funding Act.) The School Committee reasons that these additional funds are needed to cover the costs that EPS does not recognize, such as Special Education, extracurricular and co-curricular costs.

What are those unrecognized costs specifically, and why aren’t they itemized in their proposed budget?

The requested Special Education budget is $779.441. Without a budget breakdown are we to assume that the unknown categories of extracurricular and-co-curricular costs will be budgeted at $635,327.38?

Language evolves. Curriculum is now “Programming,” so I am particularly interested in a detailed breakdown of what studies are embraced by HES current programming and how that programming is applied to our K-8 grade children.

Does “Programming” include math, science, language, history, social studies and other core educational values?  We don’t know. What are the educational priorities defined by the State of Maine and Hope Elementary School? We don’t know that either.

Entering the front door of Hope Elementary School there is a large rainbow-colored WELCOME sign. Hanging underneath the WELCOME sign are framed plaques that highlight sexual orientation, and genders, including gender identity and expression, and other Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) models promoting races and skin colors, religions, national origins and ancestries and inclusion of those who have disabilities. A Pie chart plaque represents these priorities in equal proportion. But nowhere in that school entry way was a plaque addressing academics as a “Programming” priority. Is DEI, a non-organic, socially engineered construct, the highest priority addressed at HES? 

The State of Maine preferential mandating of Diversity Equity Inclusion “Programming” (DEI) over academics is a clear priority as spelled out in Legislative Document No.1482 H.P.974, which states in its opening:  An Act to Require Education Regarding Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning and Other Allied Communities. 

This Act to Require is applied to all Maine schools. 

What percentage of the $3,843,281 proposed HES budget is assigned to these priorities? We don’t know. As taxpayers, do we approve of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning and other allied Communities to be the educational focus of HES? We weren’t asked!

Hope School Committee Members are elected by Hope voters and bear a responsibility to be transparent and accessible to the constituency that elected them. However, a former School Committee Member revealed that while training to serve on the School Committee these instructions were received: "Although board members are elected by the community, once elected, the board's responsibility is not to represent the community but to uphold the laws of the legislature." The following is a sample of the official language.

P#2: Your role as a school board member can be complex. You may have supporters that expect you to accomplish certain goals while you serve. An essential first step is to understand your role and your obligations to the students in your district as well as the Maine statutes under which you serve (20-A MRSA §1001). Maine statute defines the legal power and responsibilities of school boards. In addition, you may have local ordinances, convening documents, and bylaws that your board is obliged to follow. 

 As directed by the State, it seems taxpayer input, or examination of the programming priorities and costs embedded in this budget are not required or welcomed. 

HES has a pre-K program. This is a program that allows parents with pre-school age children to engage in free pre-K educational programming starting at 4 years of age. This program is not mandated by the State.

In its current form it is a voluntary program paid for by Hope taxpayers. The pre-K program costs $130,476 and includes teachers and ed tech salaries, health care compensation, retirement benefits and other associated line items. The cost per student is unknown as well as the number of students this program serves. There is no summary in this pre-K budget providing that information or a cost/benefit analysis.

Under the heading Special Education: the HES budget identifies employees under several different categories: Special Education Teachers and staff, School Nurse, Guidance Counselor/Social Worker, and also identifies paid outside contractors for Psychological Services, Speech, Occupational Therapy (OT), and Physical Therapy (PT) all without breakdowns regarding the number of students that utilize these services, the number of hours per week each of these practitioners spends per child, per week, and the cost breakdown per category of these services.

The budget does, however, provide the overall cost of these services at $779.411 with an increase of 2.5 percent over last year’s budget.

The guidance counselor is a teacher who is required to spend time with every student engaging them in the ideals associated with Social Emotional Learning (SEL), which is defined to mean: the process through which individuals acquire and apply knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve goals, feel and show empathy for others. 

Though not mandated by the State, the Maine DOE emphasizes the integration of SEL into all aspects of the school day rather than isolating it into specific programs.  What is meant by “integration into all aspects” of daily programming is not clear. What are the goals, and what are the associated costs? They are not identified or broken down in the currently proposed HES budget either.

State Legislative Act H.P. 974 requires education regarding Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, and Other Allied Communities so it seems fair to ask whether it is true as rumored, that Teachers, Guidance Counselors or Social workers hired by HES are allowed by law to counsel K-8 children regarding the above mentioned subjects, and can  do so legally without informing or gaining consent of a child’s parents?

If true, are they legally empowered to advise on the use of gender pro-nouns, counsel and recommend outside medical practitioners to assist children seeking alternate gender remedies also without parental consent or knowledge? What if true are the budgetary costs associated with these specific services and how often are these outside contracted service providers offering these services, and if true, under which budgetary line item would this information be available? And finally, how many K-8 children are in actual need of gender counseling services? 

Regardless of where you land on the Title lX issue a Presidential Executive Order is being violated defiantly by the current State Administration and by many school districts for the benefit of two biological boys that identify as girls in relation to the girls’ sports in which they wish to participate. These two boys represent 0.0001% of Maines population of 1.4 million.

The Maine Department of Education Commissioner, Pander Makin in a recent statement encouraged school boards to continue to defy the EO and “stand firm” regardless of the possibility that federal funding to Maine schools is likely to be withheld. When I asked at the April 10 meeting how the Hope School Committee would respond to any possible budget shortfall should the Federal government make good on their threat to withhold educational funding, the School Committee members were unable to give a clear answer, indicating they hadn’t yet considered that possibilityf 

I would like to make it clear that I don’t think the School Committee or the school is staffed with bad people; quite the contrary.

I believe most are highly dedicated and motivated and they think what they are doing serves the best interests of our children by supporting State mandated programming. And that is my problem… what THEY think is best. Not the children’s parents or those of us paying for programming at HES who might think the State vision is misguided and oppose that vision and its associated costs. We are simply not included in the conversation or decision-making process. The School Committee has become seemingly indifferent to outside voices who do not support the School Committee compliance with State mandated programming.

Hope taxpayers deserve to know and should insist on knowing how a $3,843,281 proposed budget scholastically, socially and affordably benefit the children of HES and the future our community in an equal partnership that values the contribution of the residents who pay for it.

Many seniors living on fixed incomes and struggling young families are concerned that living in Hope is becoming unaffordable. With the latest State re-evaluation set to go into effect, new snow removal equipment having been purchased by the Town and budgeting for a new roof for the school, and rising costs of EMS services, property taxes for most households will go up.  The Town of Hope cannot afford to spend taxpayer dollars on socially engineered educational programs while our post COVID children race scholastically to the bottom. Maine schools are nationally ranked 43rd, dropping from a 2018 ranking of 19th according to Maine Wire. Numbers can vary depending on the source.

What can you do? Attend a School Committee meeting, ask questions, call your Superintendent and ask questions, call the Principals Association, ask questions, question your principal, question Pander Makin the Maine DOE Commissioner, email and call your State Representative Bill Plucker repeatedly with questions until he responds. He has not so far responded to my calls or emails. 

It’s our Town, our School, our children, and our money! On May 15 , at the Hope Elementary School Budget Special Town Meeting, ask questions, and if you are not satisfied with the answers your get from the Budget Committee and School Committee and are not comfortable voting for a School Budget that does not transparently disclose its programming and costs…vote it down! Decisions are made by those who show up!

Joe Tassi lives in Hope