SAD 58’s nearly $9.5 million budget was passing by a wide margin in the districtwide budget referendum late Tuesday.
The nearly 5.5 percent budget increase is due, for the most part, to payments and upkeep that the district deferred for the last two years, district Superintendent Quenten Clark said Tuesday.
“We got enough more” in state subsidy this year “to almost make up for what we lost two years ago,” Clark said.
In Eustis, Avon, and Strong – the only towns with referendum results reported as of 11 p.m. Tuesday – all five articles had passed, and if the trend extends to Kingfield and Phillips, voters will have agreed to a budget that, according to Clark, will actually decrease or flatline taxes in some towns.
“If you follow through to the bottom line, the actual increase to the communities is only about 1 percent in total,” Clark said. “For what it’s worth, taxes will actually go down four- tenths of a percent (on average),” he said.
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