NEWPORT, Maine — After rejecting an earlier version in June, voters in RSU 19’s eight member towns approved a pared-down budget for this school year when their annual district budget meeting continued Wednesday night at Nokomis Regional High School.
School officials went back to the drawing board after district voters rejected a proposed $24 million spending plan for the current school year by a 1,158 to 621 vote during a budget validation referendum on June 14, former interim Superintendent Ray Freve said at the time.
RSU 19 member towns are Newport, Corinna, Dixmont, Etna, Hartland, Palmyra, Plymouth and St. Albans.
Superintendent Mike Hammer said that 236 voters attended Wednesday’s three-hour meeting, during which voting was conducted on a series of warrant articles by a show of hands rather than at the polls in each of the towns.
The budget now moves on to another validation referendum in each of the member towns, likely in late September. The RSU 19 board is scheduled to set the date and sign the referendum warrant during a meeting on Aug. 30.
Hammer said Thursday that the $23,959,261 budget passed Wednesday will keep existing programs intact but will result in the elimination of five full-time teaching jobs, an occupational therapist, a special education teacher and half of an assistant special director post, a part-time elementary school principal position and some stipend positions.
In addition, the high school and middle school will now share a nurse, he said.
The $24,297,761 budget plan that was shot down by voters in June reflected an increase of $934,529 from last year. Had it passed, the local share for member towns would have increased by about 16 percent, which a majority of voters apparently found unpalatable.
While the newly adopted budget is up 2.55 percent from last year, the local share for member towns will drop from the 16 percent increase to the 12 percent range for most member towns, said Hammer, who assumed the superintendent post on July 1.
“We did have someone make a motion to take $1 million out of additional local money; however, that didn’t pass,” Hammer said Thursday. “Overall, the budget was accepted as presented.“
The district has been grappling with financial problems for years.
Earlier in the fiscal year, the district considered furlough days in an effort to make up for a $295,000 revenue shortfall, which forced the district to reduce overtime and fall behind on some bills.
In February, the Maine Education Association Benefits Trust stepped in after budget struggles forced the district to leave its health insurance premiums unpaid for several months.
The next month, however, district voters accepted $69 million in state funding to overhaul the district’s aging school buildings.
The budget rejected by RSU 19 voters on Tuesday is not the first to suffer that fate.
In 2013, it took two referendum attempts to get a budget passed. A $2.8 million stabilization loan failed twice at the polls before being approved in March of that year.