On Tuesday school budgets will be decided. Registrars of probate will be elected. Boards of selectmen will be established. Municipal spending on special projects, such as a new fire station in Peru, will be decided. The town of Paris will decide whether to keep its police department or contract with the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office for policing. The city of Lewiston will decide whether to build a new elementary school. Party candidates for legislative seats will be set.

It’s a lot to get done in a single day, and the decisions reached will determine future spending and establish public policy.

And, all it takes is a vote.

Not one single vote, of course, but a vote by thousands of people to reach collective decisions.

Most polls will open at 8 a.m. and close 12 hours later, which should be plenty of time to fit a visit in the day’s schedule.

Here’s the thing: Government spending will be set no matter whether you take the time to vote. Budgets will be passed or rejected. Decisions will be made. Actions taken.

If you vote, you’ve had a say in that.

If you don’t vote, you will still be subject to the tax rates and policy changes. You will have no choice.

The only choices you have are made while standing at the ballot box, deciding whether to support the school budget or not. Whether to agree that increasing municipal spending to build a sand/salt shed, a fire station or improve a ballfield is worthy, or not. Whether a certain candidate is the one you want representing you at the State House, or not.

These choices give you power.

Sadly, it’s too often a power left untapped.

Maine’s voter turnout is exceptional in presidential elections, higher than the national average. But when it comes to local elections, we slide from exceptional to lackluster.

On May 10 in Lewiston, just 2.8 percent of voters turned out to decide a $69 million school district budget. It failed by six votes.

According to city voting records, Ward 2 School Committee member Paul St. Pierre and City Councilors Timothy Lajoie, Joline Landry Beam and Michael Lachance did not vote. Even if they had, though, it would still have been a six-vote failure based on how each had voted on the budget when it came before their respective boards, with Lachance and St. Pierre against and the others for

The defeat forced the Lewiston School Committee to re-work the budget, but what will be on the ballot Tuesday is going to look a whole lot like the budget decided on May 10.

Maine school districts are now required to spend a specific minimum amount per student based on a complex formula of population and property valuations. The Essential Programs and Services formula also sets student-teacher ratios and transportation spending, among other things. So, much of the latitude in crafting a budget at the local level is gone, replaced by state mandate.

In May and again now, the Lewiston schools budget represents what Superintendent Bill Webster explains is the least amount of local property taxes the city can collect for schools and still meet the EPS guidelines. For every local dollar less raised as required under EPS, the state will withhold $2.50 in revenue, leaving taxpayers on the wrong side of the zero sum balance.

So, while it might feel good to vote “no” because you’re sick to death of rising school costs, in this case — as is true in many other school districts — the EPS punishes local frugality. Voting “no” will actually result in higher local taxes because the state will withhold a disproportionate amount of revenue.

Crazy, right?

This mandate rises from the work of past lawmakers who we elected to serve. So, we’ve done this to ourselves.

Want to have a say?

Get informed.

Go vote.

Please.

jmeyer@sunjournal.com

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