STONINGTON, Maine — Maybe the fourth try will be the charm?
Next week, residents of Deer Isle and Stonington will meet to come up with a proposed number for the two-town district’s 2015-2016 school budget.
The figure now recommended by school officials is $6.5 million. Whatever total is approved by voters on Monday, Aug. 24, then will have to be approved at an Aug. 31 ballot validation vote for it to become official.
In June, voters rejected a proposed $7 million annual budget. The next month, they failed to adopt a $6.9 million proposal.
Earlier this month, voters endorsed a proposed budget of $6.8 million but then, at the required subsequent ballot vote, rejected it.
Mark Jenkins, superintendent for School Union 76, which includes the Deer Isle-Stonington school district, said Friday that though voters narrowly approved a $6.8 million proposal at a meeting on Aug. 4, the proposal was defeated by a 3-to-2 ratio at a vote on Aug. 11. He estimated that around 225 people attended the Aug. 4 meeting and approximately 750 cast ballots in the Aug. 11 vote.
At this point, Jenkins said, school officials seem resigned to the fact that voters will not give final approval to any budget that is more than $6.5 million. But if the district does not have a fully approved budget by the end of Aug. 31 — which is the same day school starts in the district — then it simply will have to try again, he said.
“We are obligated to keep going through this process until a budget is finalized,” Jenkins said. “We can live with a $6.5 million budget.”
