An important decision

A very important meeting for the voters in SAD 77 will be held

at 7 p.m. Wednesday, July 22, at Washington Academy. Not only this year’s taxes and school program, but the future direction of education and of state subsidy in the district for the next several years will be determined at that time. Every district voter should come out and help make this important decision.

The weekend edition of the NEWS contained a front page article about angry voters in SAD 77 calling for a boycott of the July 22 school budget meeting. That is true — some angry voters are calling for such a boycott.

But there is another group of voters in SAD 77, a group whose numbers are increasing daily, who are also concerned about their taxes but who are becoming convinced that a compromise budget is the most responsible course of action.

The combination of a dramatic decrease in state subsidy for schools (which unfairly hits poorer communities much harder than more wealthy communities) plus an increase in the state valuation for coastal communities (that’s SAD 77 communities again) has resulted in huge increases in individual tax bills.

But the problem is not a huge increase in the school budget. The budget originally proposed that the district in mid-June had only a 3.8-percent increase, however, the amount needed to be raised by local taxes is higher because of the decrease in state subsidy. And the valuation problem was already raising taxes.

Many voters who came to the first meeting to cut $240,320 out of the school budget, and then saw the devastating impact a cut that large makes, went back to ask the school board to ask them to try to rework the original budget. They asked for a new budget with a substantial cut, but which restored many of the important features of the first budget. These voters circulated a petition calling for another meeting in order to give voters a chance to restore some of the cuts.

A restoration vote would result in a compromise budget that is $128,690 less than the first (a less than 1-percent increase over last year), that restores the sports program, music, art, guidance, three classroom teachers (in the cut budget all the classes in Cutler would have to be doubled up), and results in a 6.9-percent tax increase ($28 a year on a $400 tax bill or $55 a year on an $800 tax bill).

This issue has torn the district apart. Everyone wants a quality education for the children. Everyone is hurt by the current tax laws. There is a huge divergence of opinion about what to do about it, and increasing anger and frustration over the situation…. Sharon Dean Machias