NEWPORT – Nokomis Regional High School’s 177-member senior class got a living civics lesson Monday morning when they were able to ask the superintendent of schools questions about the current budget process.

Voters in the six-town SAD 48 will decide a $16.8 million proposed budget today, the sixth time voters have gone to the polls. As budget after budget has been defeated, communities have become polarized over the issue.

The assembly was not called as a debate regarding the merits or faults of the budget, said teacher Sherry Gould, who organized the event.

Gould said she originally planned for members of the anti-budget group, the Committee for Reasonable Taxation, to present their side of the issue along with Superintendent William Braun and a school board member, but no one from CRT would attend. No school board member was in attendance, either.

The event became a chance for teachers to urge students to vote – not how to vote, but rather to exercise their civic duty and let their opinion count.

“Our goal here is to create an informed voter population,” said Gould. “This budget controversy is living history. It is happening to them. We wanted to provide an opportunity for them to ask questions and get answers. We want informed voters, not persuaded voters.”

Gould said that as Nokomis teachers attempted to keep the budget crisis from affecting students, they realized there were many fears and questions among the students.

“For people to say this is not affecting the students is asinine,” said Gould. “They are already having conversations with each other, with their parents and community members.”

“I wish they had come to us sooner,” said senior Amanda Flanders of Plymouth. She said that when students returned from February vacation, rumors were rampant and many were fearful the school would close and they would not be able to graduate.

“We were all asking the teachers and they really didn’t know what to tell us,” Flanders said.

The questions the students asked were clear and telling: Most seniors wanted to know how the budget crisis was going to affect the remaining 53 days of school, whether schools would be closing and their graduation affected, and what role the state plays in school funding.

Some students asked if shortening the school day would make a difference. Students also wanted to know how the school would be affected if the budget fails a sixth time.

Braun provided a budget process primer, explaining how a budget is created and what factors are used to come up with the final amount.

“About 72 percent of the budget is salary,” Braun said, “while the remaining 30 percent is operating costs, supplies and equipment.” He explained that some items – such as insurance – have risen by 100 percent.

Braun said the original budget last June began at $19 million but was pared to its present amount.

“We cut 171/2 teaching positions,” he said. He admitted to the students that spring sports could be eliminated if the budget fails again.

“Do the towns realize that the money [spent on education] comes back to them?” Flanders asked Braun, illustrating that spring sports can provide key scholarship money for some seniors.

When nearly half of the senior class indicated they were of voting age, social studies teacher Brian Hanish passed out green voter registration cards and a sheet of paper that showed where voting would take place today in each of the district’s towns.