The Maine School Administrative District 6 (Bonny Eagle) school board passed a $73 million school budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 at its regular meeting April 6.

Some community members in the district’s five towns appear to have been confused as to when the vote was taking place. The school board agenda posted April 2 on its Facebook page and its amended version on April 6 each listed a budget review and possible budget approval for April 6. Both agendas also indicated special meetings would be held on April 7 and April 8, if needed, but didn’t state any reason for one.

At 4 p.m. on April 3, the district posted a separate notice of a televised special meeting set for April 7 with the agenda item also including a public comment session, a review and possible budget vote. It did not indicate “if needed” and appears to have been unintentionally misleading.

The MSAD 6 Watchdogs group April 5 posted a Facebook notice that the school board would “most likely approve the budget Tuesday, April 7, at the Special Board meeting.”

“Unfortunately we missed that (April 6) agenda and only saw 4/7. Now we do see they voted last night,” the group said Tuesday.

The proposed preliminary budget also did not appear to have been posted on the district’s website prior to the meeting and no one from the public spoke at the meeting before the April 6 budget vote.

The budget rises $4.1 million from the current $68.9 million spending plan, marking a 6% increase. The state subsidy is expected to be $25.2 million, up $944,170 from $24.3 million.

In the approved budget, Buxton’s assessment rises to $10.8 million, from $10.5 million, representing an increase of $372,514, or 3.54%. The assessment for Standish goes up 4.9% to $14.4 million, a $670,875 jump.

The Buxton tax impact rises 2.42%; Frye Island 4.97%; Hollis 2.13%; Limington 3.51%; and Standish 3.03%.

Superintendent Clay Gleason said in the televised April 6 meeting that the current level of programming continues and the only jobs lost were seven through attrition, meaning positions were not refilled as people left.

In a statement April 7, Gleason described the process the proposed budget went through between December and March and said, “We made the decision to share the updates with the school board but not share links widely as we have in the past so as not to create confusion as to what version was most accurate.”

Regarding the confusion about the meeting agenda, he wrote, “The agenda for the regular MSAD School Board meeting, released on April 2 , listed the review and possible approval of the budget on April 6 with special meetings scheduled on April 7 and 8 if necessary. A revised agenda was sent Monday, April 6, as we inadvertently left off approval of the warrants to call the school board election and budget meetings. The April 6 school board meeting is televised, but it is noteworthy that not one person from the public attended the meeting.”

The accepted budget is available online, and the district towns will vote on it May 6 at the budget meeting and at the June 9 referendum.