THE NEW BUDGETING PROCESS HERE IS how the budget validation referendum works:
The regional school district board draws up the initial budget, which is presented in a document that includes the district's total cost of funding education, its non-state-funded debt service, a summary of anticipated revenues and expenses and the employer share of teacher retirement costs paid by the state.
The budget must be organized into 11 spending categories: regular instruction, special education, career and technical education, summer school and other instruction, student and staff support, system administration, school administration, transportation, facilities maintenance, debt service and other commitments, all other expenses including school lunch. For 2008-2009, the budget must include data documenting state and local savings from the reorganization into regional school districts and the resulting tax rate reduction for each municipality.
The budget is adopted by the legislative body of the district, such as a town council or district voters, followed 10 days later by a ballot vote. The budget must be posted at the polling places. The actual question on the ballot does not mention any dollar amount, but simply asks: "Do you favor approving the (name of regional school unit) budget for the upcoming school year that was adopted at the latest regional school unit budget meeting? Yes or No"
If voters fail to approve the budget, it must be sent back to a district budget meeting, followed by a validation referendum. If no budget is adopted by July 1, the budget automatically becomes the most recent budget proposed by the regional school district board until voters approve a budget.
After the first three years, school districts may decide whether to continue the budget validation referendum process.
But for Nadeen Daniels, the town clerk in Cumberland, the law is a potential nightmare because it provides so little detail about how those referendums will be carried out.
School districts and municipalities across Maine are grappling with a provision of the new school-district consolidation law that requires voters in each district to approve school budgets at the ballot box.
The law is aimed at giving voters greater say and understanding about how their tax dollars are being spent. For some districts, especially those that already require voters to approve school budgets, the law is not a big change. But some cities and towns, like Portland, have never had citywide votes on school budgets.
So the practicalities of the budget validation referendum process are raising concerns among the state's city and town clerks. They say the law provides no guidance about absentee ballots, advertising and posting or other details that ensure a fair election process.
The Maine Town and City Clerk's Association is seeking a meeting with Education Commissioner Susan Gendron to air their concerns.
"The voters are going to be looking to us to make sure the election process is as transparent as possible," Daniels said.
Some school districts, like Portland, are exempt from merging under the state's new school district consolidation law because they have more than the minimum 2,500 students. But each district in Maine must change the way it adopts school budgets under the new law.
Starting next year, each district board must develop a school budget and then each district's top legislative body, such as a city or town council, will approve it.
Ten days later, district residents will vote on the budget in an up-or-down referendum on a paper ballot.
This could take multiple elections if voters continue to vote down the budgets. If voters fail to approve a school budget by July 1, the latest budget recommended by the district board will automatically become the budget for the coming year until a final budget is approved.
Currently, budgets are approved and adopted by a hodgepodge of methods.
In some districts, a budget is drawn up by a school committee and put before voters at a town meeting in any number of articles. Another common method is a school budget drawn up by a school committee for a bottom-line vote by a town or city council. Some school districts break the budget down into any number of line items, which become separate questions on a ballot at the voting booth.
The budget validation referendum, as it is called under the law, is used currently by only a few districts in Maine, including School Administrative District 22 (Hampden, Newburgh and Winterport).
Genest, the district's superintendent, said the method allows school officials to better explain where the money in a budget is being spent and increases voter participation.
"In the long run, it was a blessing in disguise because we could show we were very conservative on administrative costs," he said.
Genest said voter participation has grown from the 75 to 120 people who would show up at a school district meeting to vote on the budget to 1,200 out of a potential 9,985 voters at the polls.
MORE COSTLY TO TAXPAYERS?
But SAD 43 school superintendent James Hodgkin said while more people may vote on the budget, there is still little participation in the process leading up to the vote. SAD 43, which includes the towns of Byron, Mexico, Roxbury and Rumford, was the first district in the state to adopt the budget validation referendum.
Typically, one or two members of the public show up at the informational meeting where Hodgkin explains why budget items have gone up or...
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