By Kelly Morgan,Staff Writer

OXFORD – SAD 17 will start the new fiscal year with an approved $31.2 million budget although voters Tuesday refused to raise $1.9 million in local costs, Superintendent Mark Eastman said.

Under the state’s new Essential Programs and Services school funding model, Eastman said Wednesday, “the budget that was submitted to voters is the operating budget until a new budget is approved.”

Eastman plans to suggest that SAD 17 Board of Directors schedule a new vote on the $1.9 million, or possibly a lesser amount, July 26. He expects the Budget Committee to discuss this portion of the budget and a supplemental article that was rejected, which would have added $493,941 to the $31.2 million overall budget, at a meeting June 21. Articles rejected by the voters may be taken back for a new vote, Eastman said.

Voters sent mixed messages Tuesday in approving some school warrant articles but not others. Eastman said voters may have been confused by the referendum questions.

For example, according to preliminary results, Paris voters appear to have rejected Article 4 with a vote of 268-260. The article was intended to raise $1.9 million locally to cover programs such as adult education. These are services the district already provides, Eastman said, but which are not funded under the state’s new EPS model.

In addition, he said, the money would have covered a gap in what the state is supposed to fund but not this year.

Paris voters did, however, approve Article 13. This was the $493,941 “supplemental” article drafted as an opportunity for voters to reinstate some positions and services cut from the $31.2 million budget proposal. The article was added at the request of district residents and parents concerned that the Budget Committee cut the budget too much.

And while Article 4 failed overall 921-852, voters districtwide approved Article 2, agreeing to appropriate $27.9 million “for the total cost of funding public education” under the new EPS act. The article calls for $12 million to be raised locally, while the state picks up the rest of the costs. Article 2 passed 1,013 to 773.

Voters also approved Article 6, which authorized the school district to spend the $31.2 million budget. As it stands now, the $31.2 million represents a 2.98 percent increase over last year’s budget of $30,382,658. The budget figure includes the rejected $1.9 million and $96,204 to purchase and lease new buses. It does not include the $493,941 “supplemental” funding.

This year, preliminary numbers show that more than 1,750 votes were cast for each referendum question. District officials have estimated that there are about 14,000 registered voters in the towns of Harrison, Hebron, Norway, Paris, Otisfield, Oxford, Waterford and West Paris.