A woman is seen walking by Cony High School in Augusta on Thursday. Augusta school officials are freezing some staff positions as part of a plan to deal with a $1.6 million shortfall in the budget. Anna Chadwick/Morning Sentinel

AUGUSTA — Certain school staff positions that are currently vacant have been frozen and cannot be filled for now, as the district grapples with finding some $1.6 million to make up for an unexpected budget deficit, the superintendent says.

Augusta Public Schools Superintendent Michael Tracy Jr. told the Board of Education that steps to eliminate the budget deficit are intended to minimize the impact to students. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel file

Michael Tracy Jr. announced the action Wednesday during an Augusta Board of Education meeting, pointing primarily to skyrocketing costs for providing special education services since the budget was finalized in the spring.

“We are not cutting positions, we are simply not filling positions,” Tracy said in an interview. “We are not suggesting that we can do without them long term, but at this point in time, it is a temporary solution to get us through the school year and up until budget season.”

Tracy said the school department has been hit on a number of fronts: the special education department was under-funded, the district got used to using federal funds such as COVID-relief money that expired in September, and the costs for special education services have increased.

Experts say that school districts across Maine are experiencing similar budget issues, as new policies introduced this year have come with higher costs. Meanwhile, wages have increased for specialty positions, as people in those roles become harder to find, hire and retain.

The Augusta Board of Education unanimously approved a financial plan Wednesday night that included the go-ahead to eliminate unfilled positions and put a selective freeze on funding for teacher and administrator professional development and money set aside for books and supplies.

Tracy, who became superintendent this year, explained that if the district maintained current spending until the end of the school year, the special education department would cost $1,630,809 more than the $6.33 million planned in the budget.

Most of the budget increase comes from a state policy change related to funding out-of-district placement students. The district has 20 students who are seeking services elsewhere. A few special education students also unexpectedly moved into the district after the school year started, according to Tracy.

To offset the projected overspending, Augusta school officials identified $510,000 in savings by cutting unfilled positions, including permanent substitute teachers and an unfilled math education technician at the middle and high school; moving an unfilled education technician position to be paid through grant funding; and the savings realized from the retirement of a part-time special education technician.

Tracy said the district is also saving $538,578 by finding unspent grant and pandemic relief money, cutting a facility project and through the departure of an assistant special education director. The district will receive $486,864 in additional revenue from the state as partial reimbursement for the high cost of the out-of-district placements, but also received $200,000 less in special education funding from the state.

About $258,000 is expected to be saved through the selective freeze on professional development, books, periodicals and supplies, and paying for the special education technician position with grant money.

“We have been very careful to minimize the impact to students,” Tracy said. “We are going to say ‘no’ to professional development for staff or books and periodicals, but ‘yes’ to field tips and other ways to participate in class, and I’ve been careful to find where we can find the money with the least impact to kids.”

Erin Frazier, a state director of special services with the Department of Education, said other schools are in financial positions similar to that of the Augusta Public Schools because of the high costs of special education, which was already expensive.

Maine has one of the highest special education identification rates in the country, according to Frazier. In rural areas like central Maine, that identification rate can be around 60%, but on average the rate is about 20%. At the same time, people moved to the state during the pandemic and families are experiencing more societal challenges from the pandemic, economy and ruralness of the state, Frazier said.

By law, if a school can’t accommodate a student’s needs, the district needs to pay for them to attend school elsewhere to get the services.

“We had this very unusual law in Maine where you can only bill the daily rate when a child is sitting in the seat at the school, but what happened during COVID-19 was almost all of those special-purpose private schools went out of business,” Frazier said. “If you can imagine, if you are only paying when your student attends, you can’t operate a business that way. We had to get stability in those schools for the way Maine relies on them. Even if a student doesn’t attend, you still have to pay staff, need electricity, transport the other students and other costs.”

Finding people with special education skills, like American Sign Language interpreters or specialty nurses, to fulfill students’ needs has become difficult as well, Frazier said. She said the cost has increased based on demand, jumping from around $50 an hour for an ASL interpreter to $75, on average.

Frazier said her team is helping schools navigate the high costs and tells school districts to look into federal funding, grants and Medicaid reimbursement for positions such as nurses, where costs are sometimes covered by state money.

But Augusta has already taken all of these steps in its new financial plan.

“There are a lot of factors creating the problem,” Frazier said. “There is not going to be a single or quick solution.”