PARIS — Voters in the Oxford Hills School District will return to the polls Tuesday to decide on a budget lower than the one rejected in June.
Polling stations in Harrison, Hebron, Norway, Otisfield, Oxford, Paris, Waterford and West Paris will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday.
Directors of Maine School Administrative District 17 originally offered a $51.5 million spending plan, with an attached $2 million capital improvements request, for 2024-25, but it failed to pass June 11 by 610 votes: 1,846 to 1,236.
Since then, the $2 million ask was scrapped and another $770,000 was cut, bringing it to $50.7 million. It’s a 5.3% increase from the $47.95 budgeted for 2023-24.
Among the cuts was a plan to start an alternative education program at Oxford Hills Middle School. Some open teaching positions and instructional coaching positions were eliminated and one teaching principal position was restructured as an assistant.
School maintenance, repairs and security upgrades to eight elementary schools, two middle school campuses and the high school will be addressed in the future through a separate bond plan.
The warrant articles for the revised budget were approved at a hearing July 23.
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