YARMOUTH — Opponents of the proposed school budget are ramping up get-out-the-vote efforts in a bid to defeat the spending plan at the town meeting Tuesday and in a referendum the following week.

The Yarmouth Tax Study Committee, the group trying to force the school committee to reduce its $23.1 million budget proposal, has bought a full-page ad in a local newspaper and sent a direct mailer to more than one-third of the households in Yarmouth, urging voters to attend the town meeting and defeat the school budget.

Voters at the town meeting can motion to adjust budget figures for the school or the town. A strong turnout is expected at meeting, which is usually poorly attended. The school budget that is adopted must be approved in a referendum on June 14.

Open revolt against the education budget is rare in Yarmouth, where residents take pride in schools that regularly rank among the state’s best. Anti-budget forces are upset with what they see as runaway spending and too much funding for extracurricular programs and services, while the municipal side of the budget is underfunded and the town has added sewer and transfer station fees to cover expenses. Budget supporters, meanwhile, accuse anti-budget forces of spreading misinformation and encouraging panic immediately before the election, saying the administration and school committee took time to develop a responsible budget that meets the needs of a growing student body.

The proposed budget is about $1 million more than this year’s spending plan, but school officials say that because of an increase in state aid, local taxes will actually go down slightly this year, despite increased spending.

In a two-sided flier mailed to 2,500 households this week, the Tax Study Committee encouraged voters to attend the town meeting and vote against the school budget on June 14.

Under a section titled “If you weren’t upset enough to get out and vote before, please review these facts,” the committee states that the town is spending $460,000 to educate 67 nonresident students who are attending Yarmouth schools, saying that 25 of them are children of Yarmouth teachers and are educated at no cost to their parents. In addition, 26 percent of Yarmouth high schoolers do not meet or partially meet state reading standards and 20 percent do not meet or partially meet math standards, the flier states.

The flier specifically encourages residents to vote no at the town meeting on Article 16, which authorizes spending $4.9 million above the required amount the town needs to meet state school funding requirements.

The flier also includes unattributed quotes, allegedly from people who spoke at public hearings on the budget, suggesting that senior citizens should leave town if they can’t afford the taxes.

The figures highlighted in the pamphlet have been in the budget for years, but haven’t been discussed, said Bruce Soule, a key organizer in the Tax Study Committee.

“It is stuff they may not want to hear, but they are facts,” he said. “This is putting it all in one place, so people can see exactly what is going on.”

Although the town says taxes are going down, it is simply adding new taxes in the form of fees for services and deferring things like road projects to create the image of low taxes, opponents say.

“If you want to control budgets, you have to control expenses, and that is what we are targeting,” Soule said.

But school officials and budget supporters say Soule and the Tax Study Committee are misleading voters.

In an email Friday, Yarmouth Schools Superintendent Andrew Dolloff confirmed that 67 out-of-district students attend Yarmouth schools, but many are Chebeague Island students who attend Yarmouth schools starting in sixth grade as part of a contract between the two towns. Chebeague and private tuition students pay to attend Yarmouth schools. Children of Yarmouth school employees do not, as part what is referred to as a “superintendents’ agreement” and Yarmouth receives state aid for those students, Dolloff said. As long as their enrollment does not cause additional costs, the school department accepts them, he added.

“To say these students cost the taxpayers of Yarmouth $460,000 is not an accurate statement, but I can see how this confusing topic could lead someone to misunderstand the facts,” Dolloff said.

The test scores highlighted in the flier failed to mention that 74 percent of Yarmouth High School students are meeting or exceeding reading standards and 80 percent are meeting or exceeding math standards, well above the state average of 50 percent, Dolloff said.

“Yarmouth High School is routinely recognized for its high performance, and typically is one of Maine’s two or three highest-ranking schools when one compares standardized test scores,” he said.

School Committee Chairman Tim Wheaton said he was disappointed with the information presented in the Tax Study Committee’s flier because the figures were discussed, and clarified, at public hearings this spring.

“People are cherry-picking information, it is unfortunate,” Wheaton said. “We certainly appreciate the focus on spending and taxes. Anyone who has come to a school committee meeting knows we take our responsibility very seriously. To suggest that the spending in our schools is excessive is just unfair.”

Tim Shannon, who set up the group Yes for Yarmouth in support of the school budget, was infuriated with the action of Soule and his group.

“It is outrageous and his math is wrong, he doesn’t understand the fundamentals of the budget,” Shannon said. “The school board has spent a year making very tough decisions and wringing every cent of value out of every dollar they are given.

“It is crazy at the 13th hour to take potshots at a budget that so many people took so long to formulate.”

Copy the Story Link