DIXFIELD — The RSU 10 Board will take up a petition Monday submitted last week that calls for another vote on the recently passed $36.5 million operating budget.
Superintendent Craig King said on Friday that a state statute allows such a request, providing a sufficient number of valid signatures are on the petition.
According to Title 20-A, section 15694, a school board must hold a budget reconsideration vote if a qualified petition has 100 valid signatures, or the signatures of 10 percent of the voters in the previous gubernatorial election. To meet the gubernatorial requirement, several hundred RSU 10 residents would have had to sign the petition.
The petition submitted to the Central Office receptionist last week by Rumford resident Candace Casey contained 117 signatures. However, after the town clerks in each school district studied the signatures, only 94 were found to be valid.
Although an insufficient number of valid signatures were presented, King said he will bring the petition to the board at their 6:30 p.m. meeting.
“They need to know this,” he said.
He said the petition also requested that another vote on the school budget coincide with a third vote on the Rumford municipal budget, which is set for Tuesday. However, the petition was not submitted in time to allow for such a vote, he said, even if it had obtained the required number of valid signatures.
Valid signatures were determined from people in most, but not all, of the RSU 10’s 12 member towns. All towns in the district are Canton, Carthage, Peru, Dixfield, Rumford, Mexico, Roxbury, Byron, Buckfield, Hartford, Sumner and Hanover.
RSU 10 voters very narrowly turned down a proposed $36.18 million budget in June. By time the second vote was held in late July, another $300,000 had to be added because the state legislature had mandated that the district pay a portion of the state’s share of teacher retirement finds.
Also on Monday, the board will enter into closed sessions to discuss negotiations and a technology contract.
The meeting takes place at the Central Office in Dixfield.
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