NEWPORT – In a move that could affect school districts and municipalities around the state, Newport’s selectmen are challenging the theory that school districts have the right to assess school payments without voter approval.

The Newport board voted unanimously Wednesday night to send only the portion of the school payment to SAD 48 that has been approved by voters – an amount $120,000 less than requested.

Since last June, SAD 48 has had five referendum votes on a proposed $16.8 million budget, and it has failed each time. Three of the five articles passed, however, leaving adult education ($35,000) and additional local funds ($931,000) still left to fund. A sixth vote is set for March 9.

Throughout the nine-month process, SAD 48 Superintendent William Braun has maintained that the district can operate – and more importantly, bill the towns for payments – based on the last budget proposed to voters, even if it failed.

Not so, said Newport’s attorneys in a letter to town officials.

Although there may be language in school funding laws that allows the system to be based on the last proposed budget, other state laws prohibit towns from spending any money without voter ratification.

“There appears, at the very least, to be some conflicting statutes,” said Town Manager James Ricker.

“A municipality may be legally entitled to refuse to pay a district more than required under the latest, voter-approved budget,” attorney Edmond Bearor of Rudman and Winchell advised the town. “It is unlawful to expend more money than authorized by the voters.”

As a result of that advice, Newport selectmen unanimously voted to pay SAD 48 $22,263.17 this month, rather than the $104,000 requested.

Those figures are based on the last approved budget from June 2002.

Reached at his Brewer home late Wednesday after Newport’s meeting, Braun said that should the other five district towns follow Newport’s lead, “it will cripple us.”

He said, “We’ll run the district until we can’t. We can make it at this point through the next two payrolls, until the end of March, if we don’t pay any bills.” Braun said that if the budget is defeated again on March 9, it is likely the district will take any town not paying what the district is charging to court.

Braun said the attorneys for SAD 48 take exception to the interpretation of the funding laws by Newport’s attorneys.

“Our attorneys are still standing fast,” countered Ricker. “This, at the very least, needs clarification from the Law Court. I am completely satisfied that the attorneys have found conflicting funding statutes.”

Ricker said the conflict was first brought to his attention after Bearor read a Bangor Daily News story about the SAD 48 funding problems. “The article triggered the attorney’s research into the issue,” he told the selectmen.

“The issue is basic: Either the SAD48 board of directors has the exclusive right to set the payments or the voters have the exclusive right,” he said.