AUBURN — Voters passed the school budget by a decent margin Tuesday. Unofficial returns showed it passing by a vote of  1,582 to 930.

“That’s very good news,” a relieved Auburn Superintendent Katy Grondin said Tuesday night. “I so appreciate residents coming out and supporting the budget, knowing they were asked to pay a little more money to provide students a quality education.”

The budget passed is $38.2 million, up 3 percent from the current year. It means a property tax increase of $58 on a home valued at $150,000. It’s been described as a budget that maintains programs, provides teachers with raises and covers higher health insurance and special ed costs. Throughout the day Tuesday, voter turnout was light but steady, Auburn City Clerk Sue Clements-Dallaire said.

At Washburn Elementary School, the Ward 1 voting location, election clerk Peter Letourneau said turnout was “pretty good, given it’s a primary election and there are no significant fights within any one party.”

Voters offered mixed reactions on why they did or did not support the school budget.

“I voted yes,” said Marc Gardner. The budget last year “went back and forth too many times; there were too many no votes.” He didn’t want to see that happen again, calling it a waste of time. “Really, it’s in a lot better shape than it was,” Gardner said. “It’s time to let it go through.”

Fred Lidstone and Kiin Issa voted yes, “for the kids,” Issa said. The Auburn School Department does good work, she said.

“It seems like a reasonable budget,” Lidstone said. “It needs to be increased, but I’m a little biased. I work for the School Department.”

Senior Priscilla Agurkis said she was concerned about her fixed income and higher property taxes, but she still voted for the budget.

She approves of teachers getting raises next year after going without this year. “We need good teachers,” she said. “We need to pay them well.”

But others said the budget was too high.

“I voted no,” Joel Salberg said.

Ditto for Philip House and John Bermudez.

“It’s too high,” House said. “It needs to be done over again.”

“Again, they’ve gone up instead of trying to maintain,” Bermudez said. “Under the circumstances, they should re-evaluate considering the position of many of their constituents.”

He complained about too much money being spent on administrators, and the School Department cutting 2½ positions and adding two. “To me, it’s all games. They still haven’t gotten the message that for a school that’s giving us a D average, they need to spend less and concentrate on their job.”

Until last year, school officials were talking about building a new Edward Little High School with local taxes. “Give me a break. Wait for the state,” Bermudez said. “They finally heard that. So maybe if we go against the vote a couple of times, they’ll listen.”

bwashuk@sunjournal.com

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