DIXFIELD — Residents of RSU 10’s 12 member towns will go to the polls Tuesday to decide the fate of a proposed $36.5 million operating budget for the district’s nearly 2,800 schoolchildren.
Residents at a districtwide, town meeting-style vote approved all 15 articles that comprise the budget Thursday night at Mountain Valley High School.
When voters cast their ballots on Tuesday, they will be asked to simply vote yes or no on the budget figure.
This is the second time residents have gone to the polls to vote on a budget.
On June 11, the then-$36.2 million budget was narrowly defeated by about 30 votes out of more than 3,000 cast.
Since that first vote, the RSU 10 board learned that it must pay $468,000 in teacher retirement costs that had previously been paid by the state. To help reduce the higher budget figure, they pared another $128,000 off the budget, while the state added nearly $346,000 more to the General Purpose Aid to education.
Although the proposed budget is higher, the total tax liability by member towns has declined to 45 percent from last year’s 47 percent.
The second school budget vote comes at a time when at least two of the district’s 12 member towns have not adopted a municipal budget for fiscal year 2013-14. Mexico residents will be voting again on several municipal articles that were defeated in June on July 30. Another vote to pass portions of the Rumford municipal budget will take place in early September.
Times and places for July 30’s RSU 10 budget votes are:
Buckfield — Town Office, 4 to 8 p.m.
Byron — Town Office, noon to 8 p.m.
Canton — Town Office, 4 to 8 p.m.
Carthage — Town Office, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Dixfield — American Legion Hall, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Hanover — Town Office, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Hartford — Town Hall, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Mexico — Town Hall, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Peru — Town Office, noon to 8 p.m.
Roxbury — Town Office, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Rumford — American Legion Hall, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Sumner — Town Office, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
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