Residents of Dayton, Old Orchard Beach and Saco cast their votes Tuesday on a $42.5 million budget for Regional School Unit 23 for the 2010-11 school year.

The voting results were still incomplete late Tuesday night. The budget, as proposed, is up $78,694 from this school year, a 0.19 percent increase.

The amount to be raised from property taxes would vary by community. Dayton would pay an increase of 5.66 percent, Old Orchard Beach would have a decrease of 2.01 percent, and Saco would have an increase of 0.03 percent.

No jobs are expected to be eliminated, and some positions and programs are expected to be added at the elementary and middle school levels and at Old Orchard Beach High School, including an advanced-placement biology teacher.

A mistake discovered in the original cost-sharing calculation produced a greater contribution from Dayton than had been expected.

RSU 23, formed as a result of Maine’s school consolidation law, had a simple formula to determine how much each community would contribute through property taxes in the district’s first year.

School officials didn’t realize that the use of a more complex formula would be triggered for next year’s budget by shifts in state aid and the amounts that communities must raise to secure those state funds.

Saco Mayor Roland Michaud recently pointed out the error, and the district confirmed the mistake in May, said Sharon LaFlamme, business manager for the district.

The revised calculation means that Dayton would pay $113,420 more than it did for this year. It had expected a decrease of $41,383, said Skip Cushman, Dayton’s representative to the school board.

 

Staff Writer Trevor Maxwell can be contacted at 791-6451 or at: tmaxwell@pressherald.com