ELLSWORTH, Maine — With the rejection last week of the city’s proposed $19.9 million annual school budget, Ellsworth officials are looking to come up with a new proposal to send to voters early next month.
Voters, who turned out in low numbers, rejected the budget 129 to 105 in a validation referendum on Tuesday, June 9.
The number of people who successfully voted against the budget, which had received the elected City Council’s approval in May, represent only 2.3 percent of the city’s registered voters. In total only 234 voters, or 4.2 percent of the city’s 5,534 registered voters, weighed in on the proposal, which was the only item up for consideration on the citywide municipal ballot.
Dan Higgins, superintendent of the city’s school system, said Wednesday that the school department has prepared another budget proposal that it expects to present to the city school board at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, June 18, when it meets at City Hall.
Higgins declined to go into details about the new proposal, other than to indicate it is less than $19.9 million, but said specifics would be presented publicly on Thursday night.
“We are looking at reductions,” Higgins said of the revised proposal. “We were disappointed with the [June 9 voting] result, and with the low turnout, but that is the way our system works.”
Higgins said that, if the school board approves the new budget, it then would go to the elected City Council for a presentation and vote at a special council meeting scheduled for 9 a.m. Friday, June 26.
Then, if the council approves the revised budget, it would go to voters at another citywide referendum on Tuesday, July 7, he said.
Higgins said that after June 30, when the current school year ends, the school department by law will operate under the rejected $19.9 million budget — the most recent one approved by the councilors — until a new budget is approved by voters.
Higgins added that, in addition to local voter rejection of the budget, one factor in the uncertainty is the ongoing state budget debate in Augusta. But the superintendent said that, too, is part of the way things work and that he is not assigning any blame.
He said final figures for state education aid for each district sometimes are known in early April and other times aren’t determined until mid-June.
“This happens to be one of those [mid-June] years,” Higgins said.
