At its meeting on April 29, the City Council's Finance Committee voted unanimously to recommend to the full City Council the $171.8 million fiscal year 2026 (FY26) school budget that the Board of Public Education approved on April 8. The budget now goes to the full City Council for a first read and public hearing on May 5. The Council, which forwards the bottom line of the school budget, is expected to hold a second read and public hearing on the budget on May 19, and vote on that date to send the school budget to Portland voters on June 10.

City Councilor April Fournier, chair of the Finance Committee, thanked Board members and Superintendent Ryan Scallon for working collaboratively with councilors during the budget process and said that as a parent, she has an understanding of the true cost of education. She and city councilors Wesley Pelletier and Ben Grant, the other members of the Finance Committee, all voted in favor of sending the budget for the 2025-2026 school year to the full Council.

Board Chair Sarah Lentz said in her budget memo to the Council that it will “increase academic rigor, foster a joyful and supportive school culture and set us on a path to providing more effective instruction to our students with disabilities. We feel strongly that this budget is a fair and responsible one that balances both the needs of our students and the pressure on Portland taxpayers.”

The budget builds off a theme of “Funding our Priorities.” It is directly aligned to the five priorities of the district’s new Strategic Plan: achievement, equity, whole student, people and systems. The budget includes investments to strengthen the music program at the high schools, increase rigor and support at the middle schools, enhance reading support at the elementary schools, and provide additional staffing and programmatic support for special education district-wide.  The budget also includes funding to add the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur and the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr as school district holidays, starting this fall. That ensures that students and staff at PPS, Maine’s most diverse school district, can observe those major religious holidays with their families without having to miss school.

The FY26 budget was developed after extensive engagement with the community, staff and school leadership, including a series of public hearings. “The community’s involvement and support were vital in creating this budget,” Lentz said in her memo. “As with any budget, it entailed some hard decisions and trade-offs. However, the end result is a fair proposal focused on improving student experiences and outcomes – all within a fiscally responsible framework.”

The budget would raise the school portion of the property tax rate by 5.33 percent ($0.42 per $1,000 of assessed value). For the owner of a median-priced $500,000 home, the budget would raise property taxes by $210 per year or $17.50 per month.

Highlights of the recommended FY26 budget include:

Key investments:

●      Access to Enrichment Subjects: Providing additional music teachers at Portland and Deering. That will move each school to two music teachers and also provide access to Casco Bay High School.

●      Elementary Literacy: Adding early literacy education technicians at Title I schools in kindergarten classrooms.

●      Special Education: Investing in staffing at Central Office to support programming in schools, and staffing and programming at the school level.

●      Multilingual Learners: External evaluation of the current programming to ensure the most effective instruction and funding to increase the number of staff with ESOL credentialing.

●      Early Childhood Capacity: Slight increase in staffing to prepare for the responsibility of special education services for three- and four-year-olds and the need to develop aligned district capacity.

●      Adult Education: Consultant capacity to lead evaluation and planning process for the district’s largest school, serving more than 2,000 adult learners each year. 

Increased expenses:

Employee salaries: Budgeted to increase by just under 5 percent from FY25 to FY26.

Medical benefits: Increasing by 9.6 percent from FY25 to FY26. Before any adjustments in staffing, this would result in a $2.2 million increase in expenses in FY26.

Debt Service: Increasing in FY26 by $480,000. 

Maine Paid Family Medical Leave program (PFML): The district’s share will be $505,000 in FY26. 

Inflation: The overall costs of goods and services in the Northeast went up 3.7 percent in the past year.       

Revenues: Unlike the City, which can raise fees for parking and other services to generate revenue, the school district is not able to raise revenue and so is dependent on such revenue sources as state education aid, grants and Title 1 funds. Here are some key revenue sources for FY26:

●      Flat state funding: The state subsidy for the district is relatively flat for FY26, despite the increased needs of district students, including those with special needs and a high number of students experiencing homelessness. This is due to Portland’s increasing property values. A community’s property valuation is a key factor in the state school funding formula, and communities with a higher valuation are expected to bear a larger local share of their students’ education costs. For FY25, the Portland Public Schools received $26.21 million in state education aid and in FY26, the district’s share of state aid is $26.3 million.

●      Use of fund balance: The Portland Public Schools has built up a fund balance. The budget calls for using a little more than $3.9 million for one-time expenses to help lower the impact on property taxes while also increasing programming for students.

●      Title Funding Decreasing: Title funds, which are federal funds that assist schools with high student concentrations of poverty in meeting educational goals, are going down $604,000 or 18 percent.

In summary, for the second year in a row, the recommended FY26 budget is a comprehensive budget of all revenues and expenses, not only local funding. The recommended $171.8 million budget consists of a local budget of approximately $162.8 million and $9 million in additional funds. This budget reflects a 6 percent or $10.3 million increase compared to the $161.4 million FY25 budget. 

The budget requires an investment of $127.2 million from local taxpayers. It would raise the school portion of the property tax rate by 5.33 percent ($0.42 per $1,000 of assessed value). For the owner of a median-priced $500,000 home, the budget would raise property taxes by $210 per year or $17.50 per month.

“The City of Portland is frequently cited as one of the most desirable places to live in our nation. Good schools are key to a great city, attracting the young families who help vitalize our community,” Lentz noted in her budget memo to the Council. “Our budget makes key investments that will benefit our students, support our educators and ensure that we continue to be able to offer the quality education that helps our whole community thrive. We ask you to join us in supporting this budget and sending it to Portland voters for final approval on June 10.”

View the FY26 school budget materials and a budget calendar on the district’s website.

View the agenda and streaming information for the City Council's May 5 in-person meeting, at which the Council will hold a first read and accept public comment on the proposed FY26 School Budget at the City of Portland's Meetings & Agendas Portal.

The Portland Public Schools is Maine’s largest school district, with nearly 6,500 students, and it’s also the most diverse. About one-third of the district’s students come from homes where languages other than English are spoken—a total of 59 languages. Approximately 47 percent of the district’s students are white and 53 percent are students of color. More than half of all PPS students are economically disadvantaged.