SAD 4 voters reject $7.2 million school budget

By Stuart Hedstrom
Staff Writer

GUILFORD — For the second time in as many months, residents of School Administrative District 4 voted down a proposed 2015-16 school budget. On Wednesday, citizens of the six-district community turned down a $7,201,600 spending plan — with a local assessment of approximately $3,736,000, or 6.38 percent more than the year before — by a 259-216 vote. In June, a budget of $7.27 million failed at the polls by a margin of about 75 to 25 percent.

On Thursday night, the SAD 4 board met at Piscataquis Community Elementary School to discuss the plan for bringing forward a third version of the 2015-16 budget.
“We do need to get another budget up and passed, so we do need to set times to do that,” Superintendent Ann Kirkpatrick said.
Each member of the school board was given copies of the financial information for the previous two years, comprising actual spending compared to budgeted items and the 2015-16 projections. Kirkpatrick asked board members to go through the documents for possibilities to bring forward with the budget committee scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. Monday, Aug. 3, at PCES.
“You are asked to go through the budget and look for any discrepancies and highlight it line by line,” she said.
Kirkpatrick said the full school board will vote on the revised budget on Aug. 5.
“The district budget meeting will be [Aug. 12] and the vote will be [Aug. 19,” she said.
The Aug. 5 proceedings are set to start at 7 p.m., and the district budget meeting will begin with an information session at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 12, at PCES. The budget approved Aug. 12 would go out to a referendum in Abbot, Cambridge, Guilford, Parkman, Sangerville and Wellington on Wednesday, Aug. 19.
The school board is set to then meet at 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 20, for a potential computation and declaration of votes.
Kirkpatrick was asked by a member of the audience whether school would start on time, were the budget not approved Aug. 19.
“Yes, we can move forward,” she replied.
Kirkpatrick said the school board would still hold its regular monthly meeting Aug. 11.