Voters decide on school budgets; penalties hang over two districts

  HOULTON, Maine — With nearly $23 million up for voter approval between three school districts, few residents are exercising their franchise when it comes to school budgets and the continuing struggle over school consolidation and penalties.
SAD 70 and CSD 9
Superintendent Terry Comeau said residents had passed CSD 9’s $4.6 million school budget in Monday’s referendum with a vote of 89-50. At the district budget meeting June 8 only 27 voted, all in favor of the budget for the 420 students from pre-K through 12th grade in Crystal, Dyer Brook, Island Falls, Merrill, Oakfield and Smyrna.
SAD 70’s $6.3 million school budget passed the June 9 referendum in a 74-14 vote according to Superintendent Robert McDaniel. He said the budget is $150,000 lower than last year’s – a modest savings to taxpayers. McDaniel added that despite the budget reduction, the school is able to maintain standards, services and curriculum due to attrition and cost-cutting.
The SAD 70 budget is for schools that serve the towns of Amity, Cary Plantation, Haynesville, Hodgdon, Linneus, Ludlow and New Limerick.
But, if there is the glimmer of good news in maintaining the curricula for the schools, it’s obscured by clouds hanging over SAD 70 and CSD 9. Both face penalties for not complying with the new school consolidation law.
District 70 has an $88,000 fine staring down at it from Augusta. McDaniel does say the legislature has approved a one-year delay before imposing the fine which may be lifted if the new consolidation law is repealed. The same is true for CSD 9 and its $69,000 penalty. Comeau says he hopes the governor will rescind the penalty with a stroke of his pen, possibly as early as Friday. If not, the legislature could repeal the law. Failing either of those two possibilities, the $69,000 will be carried into the FY 2011 budget since it represents money that was held back from the district and not money to be paid out to the state.
SAD 29
Preliminary indications from yesterday’s school budget validation referendum in Houlton, due to its very light turnout, indicate that the multi-million dollar budget probably has passed.
SAD 29, serves 1,300 students, K through grade 12, in Houlton, Hammond, Littleton and Monticello. It has an alternate plan approved and is in compliance with the new consolidation law so it does not face any penalties.
According to Superintendent Steve Fitzpatrick, the budget is nearly $12 million when all revenue streams are included. At the public hearing last Thursday, only 18 residents showed up at Houlton’s Southside School in addition to local officials and staff. Basically, 20 articles were approved with a lone dissenter on at least one article. All articles and the budget passed in the groundwork preparation for the school budget validation referendum that was decided after presstime last night.
The referendum yesterday was for a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote which means keeping or re-tooling the current budget approved at the public hearing June 11. The school district is on a fiscal year  (July through June) and the town is on a calendar year. Each entity anticipated budgets differently.  Town Manager Doug Hazlett said this year it resulted in a shortfall of about $44,000 more the town will have to send to the school district from the fund balance.