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BY CRAIG CROSBY
Staff Writer 07/24/2008

enlarge Staff photo by Andy Molloy

MONMOUTH VOTE: Muriel Minkowsky, left, and Donna Shaw dispense a ballot to Hope Olmstead, right, to vote Wednesday at Cumston Hall in Monmouth. Wednesday night’s totals revealed the town again turned down the ratification for the third time.

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The $7.6 million budget was rejected in Wednesday's daylong referendum by 421-286, Town Clerk Carrie Ivey said.

Of those who voted against the budget, 398 indicated on their ballot that they want to cut spending, Ivey said. Six people want to increase spending and 17 ballots were blank.

This is the third time a budget approved by voters during a public budget meeting has failed ratification.

Wednesday's decision means the school board will begin the process again and likely will attempt to find additional cuts to present to voters.

The school board is scheduled to meet on July 30 and Chairman Michael Rogers said he hopes the board also will meet with selectmen that same evening.

Though disappointed with Wednesday's results, Rogers said the board is committed to developing a new budget that will meet voters' approval.

"We can't continue to fracture the town this way," he said. "It's something we're going to have to work out."

While spending in the most recent budget remained unchanged from the previous proposal, school board officials were able to reduce the amount of money to be raised by local property taxes by about $160,000.

That was enough to convince selectmen, who had proposed their own $7.4 million budget in the two previous votes, to join forces with the school board. The budget was overwhelmingly approved by residents at last week's budget meeting.

An amendment that would have cut $121,000 in spending from the budget was rejected 57-26 during that meeting.

Voters at the initial budget meeting last month agreed by one vote to adopt the selectmen's $7.4 million budget proposal, which was $300,000 less what the school board was proposing at the time.

That $7.4 million plan was then soundly rejected during a referendum June 10.

School board members spent the next couple of weeks searching for additional revenue that allowed them to whittle nearly $100,000 from money to be raised by property taxes. The adjustments came from unexpected state and federal funding and money left over from this year's budget.

But that budget, too, was soundly rejected by voters during a June 30 referendum.

And, as was the case on Wednesday, a majority of those who voted against the budget on June 30 indicated they wanted to cut spending.

Craig Crosby--623-3811 Ext. 433

ccrosby@centralmaine.com

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