BAR HARBOR — Thanks to a new fuel oil contract, island schools are projecting substantial savings for local taxpayers next year. Mount Desert Island schools collectively have locked in at $1.899 a gallon for heating oil for the 2009-10 budget year, said business manager Nancy Thurlow Tuesday.

The school system chose to lock in with No Frills Oil of Hancock at a committee meeting on March 10. For the most part, the deal will help to ensure that school budgets remain fairly flat. Some of the 2009-10 budgets will see a decrease from this year, while others will see slight increases, said Ms. Thurlow. The savings comparison depends on what each school had budgeted for fuel oil in the 2008-09 fiscal year. As for the upcoming year’s budgets: “We were originally projecting our budgets at $4 per gallon,” said Ms. Thurlow.

Last year, the school system took a hit on fuel oil because it locked in at $4.329. Island schools, along with many other area businesses and municipalities, chose to lock in at that price because of the skyrocketing fuel prices in the market at that time. Now that fuel prices have gone down, the school is confident that its current price per gallon will hold up to fluctuations in the market. “If it does go down, we’re talking cents, not dollars,” said Ms. Thurlow.

As elementary schools in Bar Harbor, Mount Desert, Southwest Harbor, Trenton and Tremont review their budgets for the upcoming year, they are now budgeting between $2.25 and $2.50 per gallon. Although they are guaranteed the $1.899 price, schools want to ensure that they have enough funds budgeted to cover increased usage if necessary, said Ms. Thurlow. As the new fuel oil price is applied to budgets for the 2009-10 school year, those budgets are decreasing substantially.

The projected $68,000 fuel budget for Mount Desert has gone down to $42,500, a savings of $25,000, said Ms. Thurlow.

In Southwest Harbor, the draft fuel oil budget started out at $80,000 and went down almost by half, to $45,000.

Tremont will save $16,750 on its projected fuel expenditures of $46,000, while Trenton will save $17,000 from its original $59,000 projected fuel oil budget. Bar Harbor’s budget has not yet been finalized, but substantial savings are projected there as well.

At the high school, the $150,000 fuel oil budget already has been passed, but a projected savings of $50,000 likely will carry over to reduce taxes for the following year, said Ms. Thurlow.

The fuel savings are welcome news to area education officials as they struggle to keep MDI school budgets lean in the face of ever-increasing cuts in state subsidy.