Lewiston residents narrowly approved the town’s proposed school budget Tuesday after rejecting two previous iterations.
The now-approved version of the budget carries a total price tag of $109.6 million and an accompanying school-side property tax hike of approximately 9 percent.
About 54 percent of those who turned out to the polls voted in support of the proposal, which is roughly equal to the proportion of voters who rejected the second draft of the budget in June.
With 1,230 votes in support of the proposal and 1,033 in opposition, the school district’s FY25 was ultimately approved with a margin of less than two hundred ballots.
Voters were also asked to answer a “non-binding advisory question” concerning the budget wherein they had the opportunity to indicate whether they felt the proposed FY25 was “too high,” “acceptable,” or “too low.”
Click Here to See a Sample Ballot from Tuesday’s Vote
Similar to the results of the budget referendum itself, roughly 48 percent of those who voted expressed a belief that the budget up for consideration this month was “too high.”
23 percent of voters responded that it was “acceptable,” and 27 percent said that it was “too low.” 39 voters — representing 1.7 percent of total ballots cast — left this question blank.
Click Here to See the Full Results of Tuesday’s Vote
This third and final iteration of the school budget contained a number of expenditure reductions and will cost taxpayers nearly $3 million less than the version with which they were presented in May.
When residents first voted on the school budget two months ago, more than 65 percent of those who turned out to the polls expressed opposition, sending local lawmakers back to the drawing board.
Although officials trimmed about $1 million off the total cost of the budget before the June primary, their second proposal nonetheless included a 13 percent school property tax rate hike.
If approved, that increase would have raised the school portion of the mill rate by $1.68, bringing it to a total of $13.85.
After about 54 percent of voters rejected this proposition, another $1.7 million was cut from the budget’s price tag, bringing the property tax rate hike down to roughly 9 percent.
This figure translates to a $1.19 increase in the school-side mill rate, resulting in a new total cost of $13.33 per $1,000 worth of property value.
To lower the overall cost of the upcoming school budget, officials reportedly decided to cut 28 positions, as well as some funding for transportation and nutrition programs, library supplies, and special education.
Among the 28 cut jobs were several teachers and a school resource officer, according to WGME.
[RELATED: Lewiston Residents to Vote for Third Time on School Budget Proposal]
In crafting the FY25 budget, the district has reportedly struggled to cope with the coming loss of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding.
ESSER was originally launched in the wake of the pandemic and was designed to “address diverse needs arising from or exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, or to emerge stronger post-pandemic, including responding to students’ social, emotional, mental health, and academic needs and continuing to provide educational services as States and school administrative units (SAUs) respond to and recover from the pandemic.”
Around 9 pm Tuesday night, Lewiston Superintendent Jake Langlais posted a statement on X regarding the results of the election.
“The School Budget in its third vote has PASSED,” Superintendent Langlais wrote. “1230 voted in favor and 1033 voted no.”
“We heard mixed feedback throughout the day,” Langlais said. “Thank you to those who got out to vote and thank you to the City Clerk’s team for all their work.”
The School Budget in its third vote has PASSED. 1230 voted in favor and 1033 voted no. We heard mixed feedback throughout the day . Thank you to those who got out to vote and thank you to the City Clerk's team for all their work.
— Jake Langlais (@kjlanglais) July 10, 2024
Lewiston isn’t the only municipality where growing public school budgets are driving property tax increases.
Earlier this year, the Portland City Council approved a school budget accompanied by a 6.6 school property tax increase.
Portland Public Schools explained in a press release that the district originally went into the budgeting process with the expectation of having a $19.4 million shortfall that would have required a 17.41 percent tax increase for residents.
[RELATED: Portland City Council Unanimously Approves School Budget with 6.6% Tax Increase]
The school district went on to say that they were able to reduce their projected costs through “strategic reductions and restructuring.”
Similarly, Gorham residents approved a $53 million school budget accompanied by a 9.05 percent property tax hike by a slim two-vote margin in June.
[RELATED: Recount Results: $53 Million School Budget with 9.05% Property Tax Hike Approved by Two Votes]
Because of the remarkably close margin by which it was approved, a recount was conducted late last month.
The final version of the budget for FY25 represents a 6.97 percent spending increase over the district’s FY24 budget.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="29222 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=29222">8 Comments
this is the great taking in action. property owners paying for illegal alien children to learn enough english to demand welfare… wow. find it hard to belive all these school budgets are passing like they are.. who trusts the vote?
Better go out and vote property owners. Look at Gorham, renters need child care and feeding services
That what happens when you feed stray cats. Not to worry it won’t cost a thing because pinhead pengrees new illegal’s will be picking up the tab when they start paying property taxes. What’s that you say? They don’t pay taxes? Oh shit.
Wake up people they’re importing voters at your expense and when they have enough what makes you think they won’t turn on you?
Guy goes to the zoo and there was only one animal, a dog. It was a shih-tzu. I think everybody on this site is probably on the same team already, so a joke instead.
Seems odd to me but for the first two votes on the school budget the city used the regular vote tabulation machines and it took days to get the results. The third ballot was a photo copied piece of paper that had to be hand counted…..
Results in under an hour and in the hands of the Super of Schools to celebrate. Approximately the same number of votes cast as the second budget attempt. Cutting open/unfilled “wish list” positions isn’t cutting the budget. What a joke !!!!
.
For God’s sake people. A 9% property tax increase? You’re crazy to accept that. Do you know what the multiyear impact of that is? JUST SAY NO! You should force the city to limit budget increases to inflation rates. And if you don’t have enough money for all the programs, cut the ones less needed. Lots of so called government programs are non-necessities. You have to ask for every dime – “Do we need this?” And “Why?”
What is government responsible for? What are YOU responsible for? Do you REALLY need sidewalks everywhere? Do you really need all those tax exempt entities sucking the lifeblood out of the City? Cut it out!
Nine percent is a dead end for lower income populations. Seniors who have had to mortgage their homes in order to survive – the y are screwed.
So this is the beginning of the decline. Are there any city employees struggling in this economy? Adios mis amigos.
Fishy…