POLAND — Sixty-nine residents of Mechanic Falls, Minot and Poland approved a proposed $20.6 million budget for Regional School Unit 16 on Thursday night.
The spending plan will go to voters at the polls in each town Tuesday, July 28.
At a districtwide budget meeting in May, 68 voters weighed in and the budget failed to pass. It was also rejected at the June 9 referendum.
School officials hope things will be different the second time around.
Following the referendum, the School Committee trimmed $82,000 from the spending plan.
In addition, because the state budget was set in the interim, the School Committee was able to apply most of the extra $230,000 in state aid to education, lowering the impact on property taxes for all three towns.
In Mechanic Falls, it had been estimated that the original budget would increase taxes on a property assessed at $100,000 by $39.42. The revised budget, if it passes at referendum, would increase taxes by only $10.45. Minot and Poland also would see significant changes in the budget’s effect on taxes, dropping from $46.56 to $18.65 in Minot and from $44.33 to $21.49 in Poland.
The revised budget still includes adding a business manager to the central office staff, which generated the only significant discussion at the May meeting.
Eriks Petersons inferred that the inclusion of the business manager position was the reason voters rejected the budget June 9.
“If you take the business manager out of the budget, this budget will pass,” Petersons said.
Mary Martin, School Committee chairwoman, presented the board’s case for including the business manager in the revised budget, noting that the committee was unanimous in its belief that the position is essential for the district, a $20 million operation.
And, Martin stressed, it would free up the superintendent and assistant superintendent to do what they were hired to do: assist and oversee the educational staff and strengthen and improve the curriculum.
Of the 69 registered voters at Thursday’s meeting, 18 were from Mechanic Falls, nine were from Minot and 42 were from Poland.
The article on additional local funds that exceed the state’s Essential Programs and Services model, the only article for which the vote was recorded, residents supported the measure 49-9.
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