LEWISTON — After a tie vote, the Lewiston School Committee agreed late Monday night to reconsider whether to endorse a statewide referendum that would add more money to the school funding formula.

Teachers and parents had asked the committee to support the Stand Up for Students referendum. The November referendum will ask voters if they want to increase state funding for education to 55 percent by creating a 3 percent surcharge on the top 2 percent of income earners. Anyone who earns more than $200,000 a year would pay the surcharge on income over $200,000.

The surcharge would generate an estimated $157 million more for public schools statewide, and $3 million more for Lewiston.

The committee Monday voted 4-4, one vote short to pass or reject an endorsement.

“It was not a defeat and it was not an acceptance,” committee member Tom Shannon said Tuesday. It seemed the endorsement wasn’t going to happen.

Later that night, City Councilor Jim Lysen asked a procedural question on what the tie vote meant, Shannon said.

Committee member Benjamin Martin suggested the issue be tabled and reconsidered closer to the November referendum. Martin said he signed the petition for the referendum, but he didn’t think the timing was good for an endorsement, considering the school budget was not yet approved.

The endorsement will be considered in September, Shannon said.

Lysen and Lewiston teacher Samantha Garnett Sias, president of the teachers’ union, said they were pleased that the endorsement will be reconsidered and that there’s much support for it.

“There hasn’t been an uproar from those people who earn $200,000,” Lysen said. He heard from someone who said their household income is $250,000 a year. That person told him, “I can support this,” Lysen said.

“The fact that they’re struggling so much with the local school budget, it’s just a no-brainer,” Sias said. The referendum would be a way to help Lewiston schools, and “hold the state’s feet to the fire” by funding education at 55 percent, she said.

Committee members who favored the endorsement Monday were Tom Shannon, Kristen Cloutier, Paul St. Pierre and Megan Parks; those opposed were Richard White, Matthew Roy, Benjamin Martin and Francis Gagnon. Committee member Linda Scott, who’s husband is seriously ill, was not present.

A 2004 referendum directed the state to pay for 55 percent of education. The state has not done that.

The Web page for Stand Up for Students says school districts will benefit if the state charges a 3 percent tax on incomes over $200,000 to pay for public education. The issue will be decided at a November referendum. For more information: http://standupforstudentsmaine.org/

Impact on school districts