AUGUSTA – Voting season is under way in Maine, but few people seem to have taken notice.

Under a new state law, voters are going to the polls this spring to cast ballots on their local school budgets. But so far the turnouts have been small.

In Auburn last week, only 6 percent of the registered voters turned out to approve next year’s school budget. Turnout in SAD 74, covering Anson, New Portland, Embden and Solon, was just 11 percent, and only 4 percent showed up in Farmingdale and Hallowell on May 2.

Department of Education spokesman David Connerty-Marin said it may be unrealistic to expect high voter turnout this year because the budget referendum process is new to voters.

The process is part of Maine’s new sweeping school-district consolidation law, which also says that if voters reject the budget at any stage, planning starts anew.

It also says that local voters can decide every three years whether to retain the authority to approve school budgets or to transfer it to local legislative bodies.

Local communities must pay the costs of school budget referendums, but the costs will not be as high in districts holding their referendums on June 10, the same day as statewide primary elections when polling places are already open.

But even in towns that don’t have budget votes on primary day, the referendums’ cost is worth it because school districts are being forced to make their budgets more open to voters, Connerty-Marin said.

“All elections cost money,” he said. “There’s a price for democracy.”

Pittston resident David Stetson, who will have the chance to vote on the SAD 11 budget June 10, questioned the referendum’s value.

“Unless a referendum is well-founded, it’s a very large waste of taxpayers’ money,” said Stetson, whose daughter attends Pittston Consolidated School.

During the last legislative session, state Rep. Kim Silsby, D-Augusta, pushed to have cities with municipal charters exempted from the budget referendum requirement. The exemption did not become part of the final law.