VEAZIE, Maine — Town councilors voted Tuesday to put their recommended school budget request on the warrant for the annual town meeting in June and not include the budget recommended by the school committee.
“The amount recommended by the school committee … is legally impermissible under the town charter,” a draft version of the warrant posted in the council’s meeting agenda states.
Under the town charter, residents at the town meeting “shall not increase or decrease the amount of any appropriation recommended by the Town Council by more than 1.5 percent,” the draft states.
Because the Town Council wants a $4,045,663 school budget with the local share flat funded at $2,714,264, that means residents only can increase or decrease their recommendation by $60,685 with the warrant approved Tuesday.
“I advised the Town Council that it was not obligated to place the school committee’s recommendation concerning the additional local funds on the warrant,” town attorney Thomas Russell said in a Wednesday email. “The Town Council elected not to include the recommendation of the school committee on the warrant. Given the 1.5 percent limitation in the town charter, the town meeting would not have had the authority to approve the school committee’s recommendation for the additional local funds, as it exceeded the Town Council’s recommended gross appropriation for the school budget by more than 1.5 percent.”
The vote was 4-1, with Councilor Chris Bagley voting in opposition, Town Manager and Police Chief Mark Leonard said Wednesday in an email. About 20 residents attended, he said.
The school committee voted unanimously at its last two meetings to support a $4.2 million budget with $2,915,342 coming from residents, despite being directed twice by town leaders to make $201,000 in cuts.
The school committee asked its budget be placed on the ballot to allow residents to decide which budget to support, saying they were going to “fight” for the budget they put forward.
Gavin Batchelder, school committee chairman, said Wednesday that while he understands their “argument about the precedent and the charter,” he will not support the Town Council’s school budget number.
“Speaking for myself, I would vote no, and that would be my recommendation to the committee and the community as well,” he said. “I don’t think the priorities of the [Town] Council reflect the priorities of the community. The community needs to have their say to speak about their funding priorities.”
Under the Town Council’s recommendation, Veazie Community School would lose a classroom teacher, a half-time foreign language teacher, a part-time speech and language teacher, three sports clubs — possibly baseball, softball and cross-country — and the chess team, a part-time music teacher and a special education educational technician in order to cut $201,000 from the budget, according to draft budget documents.
Warrant Article 25, which requires a recorded vote, approves funding amounts under LD 1 for Essential Programs and Services from the state and local funds that can be raised. That amount includes nearly $2.87 million from the state and $1,932,168 in local funds.
Warrant article 26, which requires a written ballot, is the one school budget article that only lists the Town Council’s recommendation of adding $780,530 in local funds for education to bring the total to $2.71 million, the same amount residents paid this year.
Even if residents increase the Town Council’s school budget recommendation by 1.5 percent, “that’s just not enough” to cover the cuts requested by town leaders, Superintendent Richard Lyons said after the last school board meeting.
“That leaves a $141,000 differential,” Lyons said Wednesday.
Residents at the June 9 annual town meeting will vote on whether to support the Town Council’s budget or to increase or decrease it, Lyons said.
A thumbs-up or thumbs-down school budget validation vote then will be held June 16.
“If it’s thumbs-down, we start the process over again,” Lyons said. “We would go back to the point of origin and create a budget with the council. But first we’d have to find out why residents voted it down.”