WALES — The morning after the school budget’s defeat at the polls, RSU 4 Superintendent Jim Hodgkin said he expected to have a new, leaner budget before voters in four to six weeks.

The $17.7 million budget, a 0.85 percent increase over the current year, narrowly passed in a referendum in Wales and Litchfield before being defeated by a wide margin in Sabattus, 180 against, 121 in favor.

“It’s almost like an impending death, I knew it was a possibility,” Hodgkin said.

He planned to ask the school board Wednesday night to hold a special meeting next week to start over. The three towns again will have to go through the process of meeting at the high school to vote on a new budget by show of hands and then confirming that vote in a referendum at the polls.

Some residents told Hodgkin and the board before the vote that the tax increase associated with the budget was too high: 99 cents to the tax rate in Litchfield, $1.63 in Sabattus and $1.44 in Wales.

While the overall budget had gone up less than 1 percent, nearly half a million dollars less was projected to come in from the state, money that had to be made up locally. More funds may still come to the district if the Legislature and Gov. Paul LePage can agree on a state budget soon.

“As bad as this is, we’re hoping that by the time we’re able to put this together we’ll have a biennial budget; we’ll have more solid numbers from the state,” Hodgkin said. “We have some plans. We’re hoping not to cut too, too much but to be able to reduce the tax burden somewhat.”

The public is welcome to attend the upcoming budget talks to give feedback, he said. “It would be nice if people would come tell us, especially people from Sabattus, what they were so opposed to. There were a number of people who said, ‘We don’t blame the board, we’re not unhappy with the budget, we just can’t afford it.’ If that’s their take then, boy, that doesn’t help us very much.”

kskelton@sunjournal.com

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