VEAZIE, Maine — Even though residents increased the school budget by the allowed 1.5 percent at the annual town meeting last week, they still voted it down Tuesday in the school budget validation referendum, officials said.
“The budget basically has been defeated and we’re right back at ground zero on creating a budget,” Superintendent Richard Lyons said Wednesday.
Residents voted 222 to 93 to defeat the $4,106,347 school budget approved at the town meeting, Julie Reed, the town’s deputy tax collector and treasurer, said Wednesday. They also voted, 219 to 93, to continue having budget validation votes for the next three years, she said.
“We’re having a special school board meeting on Thursday the 25th to discuss the composition of the 2015-16 school budget,” Lyons said.
Part of the discussion will be about “how do we do this in concert with the town council,” the superintendent said.
“We are in contact with the superintendent and we’re both looking for a common way to move forward,” Town Manager Mark Leonard, who also is the police chief, said Wednesday.
“I’m going to extend an invitation to the council” to attend next week’s special school board meeting, the town manager said later.
Lyons said once a new budget is established, a public hearing will be held followed by a special town meeting.
Town councilors voted last month to only put their recommended $4,045,663 school budget request on the warrant and not include the $4.2 million budget recommended by the school committee.
The Town Council wanted the local share flat funded at $2,714,264, and the school board’s budget asked for $2,915,342 from residents. 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.
Even with $60,689 added by residents at the annual town meeting, the school department was still facing a $141,000 shortfall, according to Lyons.