James Phinney Baxter Campaign Fund
The James Phinney Baxter Campaign Fund assists Portland Maine legislative and municipal candidates run for office and to oppose the destructive city ordinance and budget policies. We have been active in several campaigns over the last several years to provide an alternative voice to the residents and citizens of Portland Maine.
Take Back Portland
THE ISSUES
The FY 2026 Portland School budget proposed by the Portland Public Schools Superintendent on March 4, 2025 has a bottom line cost of $171.7 million.
The Superintendent's proposed budget is $171,737,613.00* for a total increase of $10,321,368.00, a 6.01% increase in total expenditures.
The property tax burden increase is $7,795,269.00, a 6.13% increase in total tax burden.
There are 6,500 students in the Portland schools so this equates to a $26,421.17 per student cost.
* Inc. Adult Ed, Food Service, federal funds and grants.
First the good news: Development in the city continues to mitigate some of the impact of increased spending. The tax assessor is projecting $175,000,000 in new development coming on to the tax rolls. If not for that development, the tax rate would be even higher.
However, with all good news comes bad news. Total city and school expenditures are slated to rise by $21,354,278.00 with the property tax burden increase of $15,337,851.00. This is going to equate to a $.82 increase in the tax rate (as calculated before revaluation). The median home value before exemptions is $434,151. This year's tax on that amount was $6,516.62. That will jump to $6,872.62 (before revaluation).
You should already be aware that the city is in the midst of reevaluating all of the properties in the city. Since the time of the last reevaluation in 2020, real estate in the greater Portland area has continued to rise in value. While it is not possible right now to know the impact of revaluation will have, the city assessor reported to the City Finance Committee on Tuesday that new value notices will be going out in Mid may.
Defeat The FY 2027 School Budget
May 1, 2025 Update: The Portland City Council officially received the FY 2026 School Budget on Monday, April 28, 2025 and referred it to the Finance Committee. The Finance Committee met the next night, took public comment on the proposal and then spent less then 15 minutes asking questions. Then without any comment from members*, voted to recommend approval of the School Budget and sent it back to the city council for final approval before going out to voters.
* The only comment made was the Finance Committee Chair saying that those who do not have kids in schools could not possible understand how schools function.
Inexplicitly, both the city council and the School Board took a one week vacation during this important part of the city's financial process. Now the Finance Committee is scrambling to find dates that the full committee can get together to review various parts of the city budget.
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Thanks to a provision in state law, the voters of Portland have the final say on the school budget. That vote takes place in June of every year and unless there is something significant on the ballot, it draws little attention. In the last 10 years, the five June elections that did not have a primary or other significant issues on the ballot, the total ballots cast were 970 to 4,900 votes.
In Portland, this year’s school budget validation referendum will also include a school board vacancy election that has two candidates. This will not drive much additional traffic to the polls, and so we believe the school budget could be defeated with 2,000 votes. Our goal will be to drive 3,000 votes to the polls. While this may not seem like a lot, it will still require a concerted effort to reach the required number of voters and to get them out to vote.
