Voter apathy and misinformation about the tax impact of nearly $46.8 million in spending led to the defeat of the Scarborough school budget in a referendum last week, according to school leaders and others.

“We really needed more people to pay attention to the facts, which we worked really hard to clarify,” Donna Beeley, chairwoman of the Board of Education, told the Current this week.

She also said that of Scarborough’s roughly 15,000 registered voters, only a little more than 3,000 turned out for the June 9 school budget vote.

“Where were the other voters?” she asked.

In addition, Beeley said that those who opposed the school budget perpetuated “inaccurate information,” which impacted voter response.

“The myth that the school impact to taxes is 8.1 percent is completely wrong,” she said. “The impact from the defeated ballot (measure) was actually 5.5 percent, or less than $5 a week to the average $300,000 homeowner.”

This week the Scarborough Town Council was scheduled to hold a first reading on a new bottom line for school spending. Councilor Shawn Babine, who also heads the town’s Finance Committee, said he expects the education budget to be cut between $250,000 and $500,000.

That’s based on discussions he’s had with other councilors since the June 9 failed budget vote, as well as prior attempts by councilors to lower the proposed school spending amount before it was sent out to voters the first time.

The council was set to meet on Wednesday, after the Current’s deadline, but Babine said town leaders were not going into the discussion with any pre-set amount in mind.

The original plan was for the council to hold a special meeting on Tuesday morning to set the new school budget vote for June 30. However, according to Town Clerk Yolande Justice, a quorum wasn’t reached and so the earliest that councilors can now set a second referendum is July 7.

Babine told the Current Monday the reason the council initially wanted to hold the new school budget referendum on June 30 is because the new fiscal year starts on July 1 and it’s the responsibility of town leaders “to get a budget passed before the timeline on the (current fiscal year) expires.”

The original meeting schedule for getting a new school spending amount out to voters drew fire this week from several people in town, including Steve Hanly, who authors the blog, “Look Out Scarborough,” and who also writes a regular opinion column for the Current.

In his latest blog entry, Hanly said his main concern was that “the compressed schedule will severely restrict early/absentee voting. This is especially troubling in that about 25 percent of the votes in the first school budget referendum were cast early. Transparency? Informed voters? Adequate time for early voting? Obviously these are not concepts that the council values if they continue with this headlong rush to a June 30 voting date.”

However, with the second vote on the school budget now likely to be held on July 7, there is more time for residents to have input on the new spending amount, including a public hearing at the council level initially scheduled for June 24 and a meeting of the school board at 7 p.m. on Thursday, June 18.

In defending the original school budget, which would require nearly $38.8 million from taxpayers, Beeley called the spending plan “very lean” and said it did not represent “excessive spending” on behalf of the school department.

In fact, Beeley said, only 1 percent of the budget represented new spending. She also said the school spending package, as originally put before voters, was most impacted by special education needs and a $1.1 million loss in state subsidy.

She also said that with the school budget failing on the first vote in recent years a concerted effort was made this time around by both town and school leaders to “work together to understand the details in the school budget and come to an agreement on what made sense for a figure to put out to voters.”

In addition, Beeley said that the Town Council and the school board held a joint town-wide budget forum, prior to the referendum, during which, “(we) answered every possible question.”

For Beeley the lesson she took from last week’s failed school budget vote is that “89 percent of registered voters are satisfied with the (spending amount) and so they didn’t come out to vote.”

However, of the 3,127 people who voted last week, the majority, 1,761 voters, said the proposed school budget was too high. The overall vote on June 9 was 1,719 against to 1,408 in favor of school spending, according to the town clerk’s office.

Resident Larry Hartwell told the Current this week he voted against the school budget because it represented a “totally unsustainable increase” in spending.

Hartwell, who does not have kids in the local schools, said he would be willing to support an increase in the school budget of up to 4 percent, even though that would still represent more spending than he would like to see. But he could not support the 8 percent increase he believed the budget represented.

Overall, Hartwell’s issue with the school budget is that it “was up 8.2 percent from last year” and spending on education in Scarborough has grown by more than 20 percent during the past five years.

“Who has received a 20 percent increase (in salary) over the past five years or 8 percent this year? Few to none,” he said.

Hartwell also noted that the school budget has been defeated on the first try each year for the past three years.

“While the Town Council has kept all other town accounts around 3 percent each year and 1.8 percent (for the new fiscal) year, the school budget has been given a free pass. Just look at the proposed increase this year and the past five years. It is past time for the council to put forth a budget taxpayers can support,” he said.

However, other residents, like Monica Wright, have expressed disappointment that the school budget as proposed did not pass last week.

In a Facebook post following the June 9 referendum, she said, “So disappointed by the turnout of the latest Scarborough election. We live in a beautiful, prosperous, growing town and yet we can’t find the resources for (our) schools, which would only make our community stronger and smarter, benefiting everyone.”

In an interview with the Current, Wright, who has two children in Scarborough schools, said her main concern now is that councilors will just make an across-the-board cut without considering the impact to the school department.

She’s also concerned that even with a second vote on school spending, not enough people will turn out at the polls to pass a leaner budget.

In all, she agreed with Beeley, arguing, “We need more people voting.”

Donna Beeley