After starting the school year in Scarborough with no budget, residents voted Tuesday night to pass the budget, CBS 13 reported.
A town news release Tuesday night announced that voters passed the budget with 2,223 in favor, and 1,985 against, just a difference of 238 votes. According to The Forecaster, town officials later discovered 420 additional ballots that had not been included in the initial tally, but those ballots did not change the result of the vote.
The extra ballots changed the vote count to 2,402 in favor, 2,226 against — a difference of 176 votes, The Forecaster reported.
Residents told CBS 13 that two previous versions of the school budget didn’t pass because many residents didn’t like the proposed tax increase.
[Divide over Scarborough school budget triggers robocalls]
This latest version is $50,000 less than the previous version.
The latest budget, of approximately $47 million, increases school spending by less than 3 percent over last year, but the town is on the hook for about 6.7 percent in school spending increases after a loss in state funding that would have otherwise offset the local tax burden.