FORT KENT, Maine — The School Administrative District 27 Board of Directors is heading back to the drawing board after Tuesday’s overwhelming defeat of the proposed $12.8 million school budget.
Going down with 83 percent of all voters against and 17 percent in favor, the budget failed to pass in any of the district’s six member towns, Superintendent Tim Doak said Wednesday morning.
According to the results released by the district, the proposal failed by 293 votes to 20 in Eagle Lake, 942 to 218 in Fort Kent, 71 to 31 in St. Francis, 52 to 15 in St. John Plantation, 89 to 9 in New Canada and 119 to 32 in Wallagrass.
Overall, it was defeated 1,566 to 325.
“First of all, we were very impressed with the turnout,” Doak said. “We thought that was a very good voter turnout, and we appreciate that.”
He just wished a similar number of residents would have turned out for the budget meeting last week, when just over 100 people approved the budget by a show of hands.
“We hope to get 1,900 people at the next [budget] information meeting,” Doak said.
Officials are not sure when that meeting will be, but Doak said the board is scheduled to meet Monday night to talk about where the budget goes from here.
“We have no magical budget in our pockets we can pull out,” he said. “This a process, and we are going back to the drawing board. We will take ideas and listen to the people.”
The defeated budget represented an overall 3 percent increase over spending from last year, but it included a 14 percent increase to the local share because $321,000 of losses in revenue.
Districtwide, it represented an average increase in the tax rate of about 20 percent, or nearly $2 per $1,000, of property value among member towns Fort Kent, Eagle Lake, Wallagrass, New Canada, St. John and St. Francis.
In the days leading up to Tuesday’s referendum, a group of residents unhappy with the size of the anticipated property tax increases took to the streets and social media with an unofficial campaign to vote down the school budget.
“Double-digit tax increases are not acceptable in SAD 27,” Doak said. “That is the message we got from the voters.”
At the same time, he said that message came with no clearly defined budget reduction guidelines, and he is hoping the public gets involved during the upcoming meetings to provide some direction for the board.
SAD 27’s current fiscal year runs out at the end of this month, and Doak said the district will operate month to month on the existing budget numbers until a new fiscal 2015-2016 budget is approved.
Doak did say he is confident the vote is a reflection of residents who support education but want to reduce taxes.
“It’s not as much about pupils as it is about pennies,” he said. “I feel the community knows we do good work and have good schools. Our teachers need to know it is not about them.”
At this point, he said, everything is on the table as the board considers budget cuts, including cutting staffing levels, combining grade levels, increasing classroom sizes, reducing athletic schedules or requiring students to pay to take part in sports or other extracurricular activities.
“We want to try to get it right, tax-wise and education-wise,” Doak said. “The vote does not tell us what to do, but what I am gauging things on is that 83 to 17 percent, and that says a lot.”
