SAD 4 officials bringing forward revised $9.5M budget

GUILFORD — A day after SAD 4 voters turned down a proposed 2025-26 budget of $9,752,463 — via a count of 282-187 across six communities — district officials have a revised budget to bring to residents.

A new $9,531,320 budget has been developed and is scheduled to be presented for approval at a district budget meeting at 7 p.m. on Thursday, June 19 at Piscataquis Community Elementary School. The evening will start with an information session at 6 o’clock, an extended time compared to what has typically been done to allow for more questions from the public.

“It will mean some programming and position cuts,” Superintendent Kelly MacFadyen said with the new proposed budget down by more than $221,000 than what was brought to the polls. The cuts were discussed by the budget committee earlier in the evening on June 11 and will be revealed at the district budget meeting.

The $9.5 million is up 1.96 percent from the 2024-25 budget of $9,247,391. The $9.7 million figure voted down represented a 5.46 percent increase.

Every three years the state requires school districts to determine if they wish to continue with having a referendum to affirm the budget approved at the annual district meeting. If not, the meeting would be the only time to set the finances for the upcoming academic year. A question to continue the district budget meeting/referendum process or not was on the ballot.

On June 10 SAD 4 residents voted to continue to have a referendum to validate the school budget for an additional three years, via a total of 312-155. The referendum date for the new 2025-26 budget will be announced.

In other business, the school board appointed two administrators for Piscataquis Community Secondary School to succeed the retiring Principal John Keane and departing Assistant Principal/Athletic Director Andy Shorey.

Lee Pearsall will serve as principal of the grade 7-12 school and Jon McAllian will be the assistant principal/athletic director.

MacFadyen said she and Pearsall have a long history together, including Pearsall succeeding MacFadyen as a counselor at PCHS when MacFadyen became principal of the Greenville Consolidated School in 2012. Pearsall would later work as an administrator in Colorado before taking over the Greenville principal position.

“I feel very comfortable in nominating her because I know her skill level and feel she is going to be a great fit,” MacFadyen, who also is superintendent in Greenville, said.

“I’m very happy at this opportunity,” Pearsall said. “I’m not fleeing Greenville, I’m going to an opportunity. At this step in my career I wanted another set of challenges and I’m up for it.”

McAllian will come to PCSS after serving as assistant principal/athletic director at the Bangor Christian School.

Like PCHS, Bangor Christian is a member of the Penobscot Valley Conference so McAllian is very familiar with the league. His wife is a graduate of PCHS.

“He selected the position here because he wants to be here,” MacFadyen said. She said McAllian lives about halfway between Bangor and Guilford in Corinth and his family includes two young daughters.

In the adult education report, MacFadyen mentioned the Penquis Valley Adult Education Cooperative will no longer be housed at the Penquis Higher Education Center on Mayo Street in Dover-Foxcroft. Instead some classes will move to Millworks in Dexter and the PVAEC office will be housed at The Mill complex in downtown Dover-Foxcroft. 

The education center is likely to be put on the market.

Earlier this year the Dover-Foxcroft Select Board voted to withdraw the town’s offer to retake possession of the Penquis Higher Education Center. The building has been a local school for years; in the early 2000s what is now RSU 68 consolidated its elementary schools and gave the building to Dover-Foxcroft.

Soon after, ownership was transferred to Eastern Maine Community College, which wanted to open a satellite office to offer courses for the region. EMCC has had less of a need for a full building in recent years, so it approached the town about taking over the Penquis Higher Education Center. The town’s talks with Foxcroft Academy developed into looking at the facility as a home for career and technical education programs for both high school and post-secondary students.

About $2 million in upgrades would be needed for this endeavor, and the town was awarded $1.5 million in federal funding in congressionally directed spending. That funding disappeared when Congress approved a bill in March that averted a government shutdown but cut out earmarks for states, including hundreds of millions of dollars for Maine.

In her report PCES Principal Anita Wright discussed the school’s future therapy dog which was born in late 2024. Three of the puppies from the litter, a service dog and a therapy dog in-training visited sixth-graders in late December with Christy Gardner from Mission Working Dogs.Gardner explaining the differences between service and therapy dogs to students and demonstrated commands.

Every year Wright encourages the sixth-graders to participate in the “Make a Difference” challenge as they brainstorm, develop and complete projects that positively impact others around the world. 

After Gardner spoke at a previous Veterans Day assembly, the then-grade 5 students decided their goal would be to get a therapy dog for PCES. Wright and PCES Social Worker Alexis Rollins contacted Mission Working Dogs to see if they could make the idea a reality.

Mission Working Dogs is a Lewiston-based nonprofit that breeds and trains service, therapy, and facility dogs for veterans, schools, and nursing homes. Gardner and her team have been working with PCES to determine what is needed to get a therapy dog in the school.

The therapy dog will help PCES students form healthy attachments, develop emotional intelligence and strategies and reduce anxiety and stress. The students have been updated on its progress through training and watched the dog  grow during its first year of life.

The sixth-graders raised $5,614 in their Make a Difference challenge which will fund the therapy dog training as well as the first year of insurance and a monogrammed dog bed.

The earliest the dog would arrive is in the first part of 2026, after a 15-month training process, and the sixth-graders knew they would have moved on from PCES by the time the dog is in the building.

The name is a big thing for the students, but the name will be chosen by a sponsor. 

Teddy or Breaker are possibilities but “we’ll be happy no matter what,” Wright said.