POLAND — Town officials are pleased with the wording of proposed legislation intended to improve the process for approving school budgets.

LD 1668, whose prime sponsor is state Sen. Lois Snowe-Mello, seeks to prevent the sort of brouhaha that erupted last summer when Poland selectmen refused to pay the town’s July bill from Regional School Unit 16. Minot selectmen opted to pay only a portion of theirs.

The proposed legislation essentially directs the school unit, if it doesn’t have an approved operating budget as of the July 1 start-up date of the school year, to continue billing at the rate it had been for the past year.

The bill also allows selectmen to set the tax commitment “based on the most recent (school) budget actually approved at referendum.”

Steve Robinson, the selectmen’s liaison to the School Committee, said he believed the legislation deserves the full support of the Legislature.

“I think it is simple and clear,” Robinson said. “It is a basic foundation of the voter in the booth having a vote that counts and is binding.”

Snowe-Mello pointed out that the bill also requires the question on the ballot to expressly state the dollar amount of the budget, as well as the amount that the proposed budget is greater than or less than the budget adopted for the previous school year.

“Many, many people had problems with the process and this should help people understand what they are voting on,” Snowe-Mello said.

Selectmen in July declined to pay the school assessment amid cries that the billing was “undemocratic” and “voter disenfranchisement.”

In May, voters in the RSU 16 towns of Poland, Minot and Mechanic Falls had rejected the proposed school budget, set at $18.1 million. They rejected it again in June, when the request had been reduced to $17.8 million.

In July, the budget stood at $17.1 million, and many residents didn’t want an increase that might raise their property taxes.

When the school unit’s new fiscal year began on July 1, with no approved budget, RSU officials sent out bills based on the $17.8 million figure.

School officials used that amount because it had been approved at a district-wide budget meeting before being rejected when it went to the budget validation referendum vote.

Town officials pointed out that fewer than 200 had attended the district budget meeting, while more than 1,000 voted in the validation referendum.

Poland selectmen, upset because school officials decided to wait until September before attempting a third time to pass a budget, postponed paying any part of the town’s $480,000 July bill.

Minot selectmen approved a check for the same amount as they had been billed monthly for the past year.

“In my nine years on the board, I have never had as many calls over an issue,” said Erland Torrey, chairman of the Poland Board of Selectmen. “This bill (LD 1668) certainly will address some of the problems we ran into. I hope it can get enacted.”

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