SAD 67 budget heads to voters for 3rd time New plan cuts spending by $115,100

SAD 67 voters will decide Election Day, Nov. 8, whether to support the district’s third attempt to pass a budget for the 2005-06 fiscal year, one that is $115,100 less than the last, officials said Friday.

The proposed $10.5 million budget for the public schools of Chester, Lincoln and Mattawamkeag includes slight tax reductions of .17 percent in Lincoln and 8.94 percent in Mattawamkeag, with Chester residents paying an increased 24.13 percent due almost entirely to state law requiring a mill increase, interim Superintendent Omar Norton said in a budget summary.

“I think we have come in with a budget that hopefully the voters can accept and hopefully that we can get through the school year without having to be overdrawn,” board Chairman Don Worcester Jr. said Friday. “The administration feels that this is a budget that everyone can work with.”

Several factors influenced the reductions, including lowered teacher salaries caused by young teachers at the lower end of the pay scale replacing experienced teachers who had retired, Worcester said.

Another cut came in junior high school athletics. The SAD 67 board of directors cut expenses by reducing the number of games teams played, saving about $7,600 in fees and transportation costs, Worcester said.

Only $34,000 in increased fuel and heating costs kept the budget from being cut by $149,100, Norton said.

The board approved the budget on Sept. 14.

Tuesday’s vote represents the third time voters will get to decide how much they should pay for schools. About 1,184 Chester, Lincoln and Mattawamkeag voters on Aug. 23 shot down the 2005-06 budget. Less than half that number, 528, voted on the first ballot July 12.

The budget was not changed in either instance because Norton and SAD 67 directors felt the low turnout on July 12 was not a fair sampling of the will of residents.

The voters’ rejections of the earlier budgets allowed administrators to reconstruct the budget a third time with exact figures on tuition student payments and outgoing payment reductions, Norton said.

Voters should pass this budget or prepare for cuts that would really hurt students, Worcester said.

“We have absolutely cut to the bone on everything. The next things would be staff and programs cuts,” Worcester said. “That would directly affect students and that we don’t want that.”