By Kelly Morgan,Staff Writer

OXFORD – If the full SAD 17 Board of Directors carries forward with a recommendation made by its budget committee, voters on July 26 will be asked to reconsider a refusal to raise $1.9 million locally for district schools.

The budget committee voted unanimously Tuesday to bring the question back for a second vote, saying the cut could be devastating to schools.

Voters on June 14 rejected an article that called for raising the money locally, but authorized spending it as part of a $31.2 million budget.

“Voters were obviously confused by this ballot. There was too much on it,” committee member Mike Brown said Tuesday.

Superintendent Mark Eastman said a second vote on the article would require the district to hold an informational public hearing. Because an article summarizing the $31.2 million budget already passed, he said, the district cannot make adjustments to the $1.9 million request.

The $1.9 million, Eastman explained, would cover a gap in state funding for the coming fiscal year. The state is providing only 84 percent of the its share for schools under the new Essential Programs and Services funding formula. The state is not expected to cover its full share of costs for four years, Eastman said. In the meantime, local taxpayers are expected to make up the difference.

“If the citizens say no” to the second vote, Eastman said, “then it’s deja vu all over again.” The school board would have to consider holding either a third budget referendum or a districtwide meeting in order to get another vote, he said.

The budget committee also on Tuesday considered bringing back another rejected warrant article. That article would have raised $493,941 beyond the $31.2 million proposed budget in order to restore some cut positions, supplies, maintenance projects and services.

The article was placed on the June 14 ballot at the request of concerned residents.

While some budget committee members argued for letting voters have a second go at the question, Ron Kugell and Dale Piirainen, who also serves as chairman of the Board of Directors, advised against such a move.

“To be seen as non-responsive to the election of a week ago, it would be arrogant and it would not cast us in a good light at all,” Piirainen said.