By Matt Dodge,Special to the Sun Journal

TURNER – Voters of SAD 52 approved a $21.4 million spending package at the annual district budget meeting Thursday at Leavitt Area High School. The vote was 57-1.

SAD 52, which encompasses the towns Greene, Leeds and Turner, proposed a budget increase of $816,191. The amount for 2006-2007 “best balances the delivery of quality of services with fiscal responsibility,” Chairwoman Elizabeth Bullard said at a public hearing last week.

The district also received funding for the state’s Essential Programs and Services, a program designed to provide funding for students to assure that they meet the Maine Learning Results standards. SAD 52’s class of 2008 will be the first class expected to meet these requirements.

The shortfall of what the EPS provides to SAD 52 to expected costs was listed as $945,823, a figure that accounted for expenses such as, AP courses, athletics, technology coordinators, and increases in oil and fuel costs.

It was only regarding Article 11, which addressed districtwide services and programs that voters had any concerns. Included in the article was $47,000 for daycare service that was taken on by the district.

The daycare program started as a service to unwed mothers in the Turner area and later expanded.

“There was a mismanagement of funds that brought us to where we are” admitted Superintendent Thomas Hansen. As one voter present stated during the discussion of Article 11, “It’s a real debt that needs to be paid, regardless of how it was accumulated.”

Voters were initially wary of approving $47,000 for what they thought of as a misappropriation of funds by the school department, though the article still passed with little difficulty.

All 19 articles of the warrant passed.

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