Gorham’s $53 million school budget — and the accompanying 9.05 percent property tax rate increase — was approved by just two votes following a late-June recount.
When voters initially went to the polls on June 11, the budget appeared to pass by four votes, prompting a resident to request that the town conduct a recount.
Because there weren’t any rules in place for such a situation, Gorham defaulted to the procedures outlined in state law, meaning that a petition with at least 100 signatures needed to be submitted for the recount to proceed.
Sent in two days prior to the deadline, the petition supporting a recount had garnered more than 250 signatures.
[RELATED: Recount Scheduled for Gorham School Budget with Property Tax Hike Approved by Four Votes]
As a result of the hand recount conducted on June 26, voter intent was able to be determined for six ballots, bringing the differential between “yes” and “no” votes to just two.
Originally, vote totals showed 1,827 ballots supporting the budget and 1,823 opposing it. After the recount, these shifted to 1,829 and 1,827 respectively.
Click Here to See the Full Recount Results
The 9.05 percent property tax hike included in this budget will translate to a $320 annual increase on a home assessed at $400,000, bringing the total education component of this hypothetical bill from $3,516 to $3,836.
Currently, the school property tax rate for Gorham residents is $8.79 per $1,000 of assessed property value, but under the now-approved FY25 budget this will increase to $9.59 per $1,000 of value.
[RELATED: Gorham Residents Approve $53 Million School Budget with 9.05 Percent Tax Hike by Just 4 Votes]
The final version of the budget for FY25 represents a 6.97 percent spending increase over the district’s FY24 budget.
Initially, the coming year’s budget would have been 7.62 percent more expensive than the one before it, but through a series of four budget workshops it was reduced by — among other things — lowering the district’s planned health insurance increase for employees from 10 percent down to just 3 percent.
The Gorham Times reported that the final version of the FY25 budget includes some new expenses, such as a multi-language teacher at the middle school to serve the district’s “growing number of enrolled multi-language students,” as well as an additional resource room teacher at the middle school and a half-time K-5 speech therapist.
Two years after having discontinued the highs school’s alternative education program, the district has now moved to include in the FY25 budget two alternative education teachers and one alternative education staff member for a new program serving roughly fifty students in grades 9-12, according to the Gorham Times.
Included on the revenue side of the FY25 budget is more than $24 million worth of state subsidies and $600,000 from the town’s Fund Balance, which represents an accumulation of unspent funds over the past several years.
According to the Portland Press Herald, Superintendent Heather Perry chose to include this $600,000 allocation in an effort to ease the burden on local property owners.
“The Gorham School Committee believes this budget is the lowest budget that can be approved while still providing the needed programming to operate our schools and to best serve the children of this community,” Superintendent Perry reportedly said in an email to the American Journal.
Both the Gorham School Committee and Town Council approved of the FY25 unanimously, with one member absent and one recused respectively.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="29189 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=29189">9 Comments
more like we found enough votes to tax you more.
Look at the vote again;
Can you say recount?
I would not trust any vote count unless I personally scrutinized every vote to be legally cast and count them myself. I have lost all faith in our election process! One of the main reasons I left Maine to live in a free state Florida.
The voters spoke not the ones who stayed home and did not vote.
David more should follow you. Make Maine Broke!
Perhaps the school admin needs to hire our VP, the Camel to expand their Word Salad Skills. Just what, if anything, does the following describe: “Two years after having discontinued the highs school’s alternative education program, the district has now moved to include in the FY25 budget two alternative education teachers and one alternative education staff member for a new program serving roughly fifty students”
Don’t register your cars, boats f…g animals. The 🐔🍭 think that I 💩 money. What a bunch of idiots!
as a multi-language teacher at the middle school to serve the district’s “growing number of enrolled multi-language students,” ONLY IN F….G AMERICA!!!!!