Voters to decide budget process

DEER ISLE – Island voters will decide whether to change the way they approve the school district budget next week when they vote in a special district referendum.

The polls will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday, July 15. Balloting will take place at the Deer Isle town hall and at the Stonington fire station.

Two of the articles on the ballot deal with the change to the budget approval process. According to Superintendent Robert Webster, the first article asks voters if they want to change the budget format to a cost center summary budget, which would condense the budget into fewer articles.

“The major change in doing it is that the school committee automatically will have the authority to transfer funds between lines [accounts],” he said. “In the past, that has been done by the voters at the district meeting, and sometimes it has been controversial. The voters would give up that authority to make that decision.”

Voters must adopt the change in the budget format if they want to adopt a budget validation referendum process, which appears on Tuesday’s ballot as the result of a citizen petition.

According to Webster, if the process is approved, a referendum vote would be held within three days after the school budget is adopted to validate the new budget. If voters reject the budget, it will be sent back to the school committee for revisions. A revised budget then would be sent to another district meeting and another referendum vote, a process which could go on indefinitely, Webster said.

State law, however, provides that if a budget is not adopted by July 1, the latest version of the budget proposed by the school committee would go into effect and remain in effect until final budget approval is obtained, Webster said.

If approved, the new budget format and validation referendum process would be in effect for the 2004-2005 school budget.

In a separate issue, voters also will be asked to approve borrowing up to $275,000 to erect a new superintendent’s office building on the school campus between the high school and elementary school.

The plan is to erect a 2,900-square-foot modular building on a concrete foundation to house the superintendent and other staff members serving the district and Union 76.

The staff will have to vacate the current office space, which has served as the superintendent’s office for about nine years, by September. If the article is approved, Webster said, work would begin immediately.

All three issues will be decided by a combined vote in the two towns.