SALEM TOWNSHIP — Although the Regional School Unit 58 school district got the good news that legislators and Gov. Paul LePage had approved increased funding for education, the U.S. Department of Education expects to send them much less.

At last week’s board meeting, Superintendent Susan Pratt explained that although voters in Kingfield, Strong, Avon and Phillips passed the 2017-18 budget, the Maine Legislature did not finalize the state’s budget until July 4, three days after the start of the district’s fiscal year.

Pratt and the board developed the this year’s budget based on an anticipated $150,000 of additional funding.

“At least 50 percent of the extra educational funding approved by the Legislature had to be used as tax relief, if you did not have an approved budget,” she said.

The Maine Department of Education notified her that the district would receive slightly less than $198,000, but that can’t come back to the towns in this year’s budget, she said.

The board, anticipating at least an extra $150,000, increased the use of unexpended funds at the end of the last school year from $300,000 to $450,000, and voters approved that action. The voters passed an article putting additional state funds into a capital reserve account.

Despite the good news from the state level, the U.S. Department of Education has cut funds from the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act’s Title I and Title 2 professional development programs for teachers.

According to the department’s website, “Title I, the largest elementary and secondary education program, supplements State and local funding for low-achieving children, especially in high-poverty schools. The program finances the additional academic support and learning opportunities that are often required to help disadvantaged students progress along with their classmates.”

RSU 58 uses Title I funding to operate programs that support students who need to improve their literacy and mathematics proficiency.

Pratt warned the board that if the federal funding for Title I and II go away, as proposed by U.S. Commissioner of Education Betsy DeVos, individual schools will have neither the funds nor the support staff for these support programs. The federal government would expect the district to make up the difference to continue such programs.

Pratt said she and others had visited with their Maine lawmakers, and she was confident they opposed the cuts in the Every Student Succeeds Act funding levels to Maine.

“I don’t think it’s going to get better, but it’s not Maine’s delegation that’s against the Title programs,” she said.

Pratt explained that the $260,000 in Title I funding last year will be cut by $8,000 this year. Half of the district’s Title I grant funding of $52,700 is traditionally transferred to the Title I program. Next year’s Title II funding is expected to be only $30,000, so the transfer to the Title 1 program will be $11,350 less.

“It looks like less federal money can be projected for next year, but that number is yet unknown,” Pratt said.

If both the Title I and Title II funding are eliminated, Pratt explained, the district will be expected to fund the programs through the state and local funds.

Both federal Title I and Title II funds have been fairly stable for several years, Pratt noted, but President Donald Trump’s proposed budget calls for reduction and eventual elimination of both sources.

“It’s a shift to local,” Pratt said. “It’s not the happiest news I’ve ever had.”

The Maine Department of Education can only address how funds are distributed from the Federal government. Many of the funds have been used for supplemental programs that boost younger students’ scores in reading and mathematics, which also improve their scores in the state-mandated testing children take during elementary and high school years.

“Programs like Reading Recovery have made a real difference in reading levels for young students,” Pratt said by phone after the meeting. “We have worked hard and used Title II to develop similar strategies for reading with all primary level teachers.”

These strategies do work, she said, and students’ reading levels are strong in all RSU 58 schools, as well as all those around the state that use these strategies.

In other matters, the board unanimously elected Kim Jordan as chairman and Julie Talmage as vice chairman. They also welcomed new board members Rebecca Garlick, Jessica Cain and Karen Campbell, all of Phillips.