Budget process raises anxiety in Winterport

WINTERPORT – Residents may not have realized what they were voting for when they approved an alternative school-budget voting process during last week’s referendum, SAD 22 Superintendent Rick Lyons said Wednesday.

As people checked off “yes” boxes to approve the district’s budget, they may have continued down the page and, without reading the question, inadvertently answered the same way for the new budget method, he said during the SAD 22 board of directors meeting at the Leroy Smith Elementary School in Winterport.

The district consists of Hampden, Winterport and Newburgh.

Board member Martha Harris said several residents told her they had mistakenly checked “yes.”

But Lyons said that likely wasn’t the only reason the new budget process was passed. “I do believe we had some uninformed voters,” he said, pointing out that only 11 people attended the three informational hearings prior to the referendum.

The “alternative budget validation referendum process” – intended to be clearer and attract voter interest – wasn’t endorsed by either the superintendent or the board.

The new method reverses the current budget approval process, where a district budget meeting is held only if a referendum fails at the polls.

Under the new plan, a district meeting is held first so those residents in attendance can decide on the budget that will go to referendum for a final vote or “validation” three days later.

If the referendum fails, another district budget meeting is held after at least 10 working days to consider a plan that’s been modified by the school board based on feedback obtained from the referendum. The process is repeated until a budget is adopted.

Lyons had worried referendums could be held repeatedly without resolve, costing taxpayers thousands of dollars.

But he said the goal will be to issue a budget that people approve the first time. “If we do our job well, we won’t have to worry about a second referendum.”

The new plan has a “silver lining,” because the district budget meeting could draw more people, he said. The requirement that school and town officials begin budget discussions early also “is a virtue,” he said.

“This is the hand we’ve been dealt, and we’ll accept the process and make it work,” he said.

During interviews Wednesday board members also voiced misgivings about the new plan.

“I’m not sure this is the democratic way of doing things,” said Joe Watson, concerned that the three-day turnaround between the district budget meeting and the referendum doesn’t give people enough time to vote by absentee ballot.

Residents hadn’t really understood the differences between the new and the current processes, said Valerie Fitzgerald. “They perceive there’s more control and they’ll get more information this way. But there really isn’t more information to be given … there really is no more control,” she said.

And Kim Slininger wondered why voters hadn’t heeded directors’ opposition to the new plan. “They elect us into office, yet they’re reluctant to accept our word for it,” she said.