PARIS — SAD 17  Superintendent Rick Colpitts said the names of seven voters from Paris who attended Thursday night’s school budget hearing were certified Friday and their votes will be counted.

About 50 Oxford Hills School District voters approved a $35.9 million budget at the Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School Forum. But Paris voters, including two school board directors and a member of the Finance Committee, were seated by themselves because the Paris town clerk was not at the meeting to certify they were registered voters.

Colpitts said the Paris group was allowed to participate in the meeting, even holding up cards to vote, but their vote would not have been legally recognized at that time if there was a challenge to the vote.

Paris school board director Michael Dignan verified the Paris voters as being town residents as they came into the school Thursday night.

Paris Town Clerk Elizabeth Knox did not attend the annual school budget hearing and vote Thursday night to certify voters from that town. Clerks from the other seven district towns were in attendance.

Knox said Friday it was an “oversight” that led to the temporary disenfranchisement of the Paris voters.

“I just didn’t get the message,” she said.

She called the school district Friday morning to apologize for not being at the meeting, she said.

Knox said she was out of state for several days, including Thursday, and when she called her office Thursday morning to see if she had any messages, she was told she did not. The phone call from Colpitts’ secretary, Linda Liimatta, reminding her of the meeting time did not come through until later and no one knew it was on her message machine, she said.

Liimatta said she calls each of the eight town clerks to remind them of the 7 p.m. meeting time.

Each clerk was also notified in writing by the superintendent’s office on May 24 of the date and time of the meeting and the fact that they must be there. The notification included detailed information about what they needed to do at the June 6 meeting and for the June 11 budget validation process.

The information for the June 6 meeting stated in part that, “Town clerks must arrive at the high school no later than 6:30 p.m. to check in registered voters arriving to participate in the meeting.”

Knox said she receives a call in advance each year to remind her of the time of the budget hearing.

“It was an oversight on my part. It won’t happen again,” she said.

Colpitts said this is the first time he recalls this happening at a SAD 17 budget hearing. The school district’s attorney from the Portland law firm of Drummond Woodsum told him it happened in one other Maine town this year. Colpitts said he was also told by the law firm that the list of voters simply has to be certified and that anyone could have checked the participants into the meeting as long as the participants were on a certified voting list.

The second part of the budget approval process occurs on June 11 with a budget validation referendum at polls in the district towns of Harrison, Hebron, Norway, Otisfield, Oxford, Paris, Waterford and West Paris.

ldixon@sunjournal.com

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