Voters Tuesday affirmed the budget for Brunswick schools at $35 million by a margin of 169 ballots.

Of 1,301 total votes cast, 735 favored the budget and 558 opposed. Eight ballots left the question blank.

School budget validation is the final local step in setting expenditures for Fiscal Year 2014, which begins July 1.

Town and school officials approved an overall budget of $57.4 million in May, after more than $700,000 in staffing and programming had been cut from school expenditures and an additional $400,000 was taken out of the municipal side. The cuts reduced the necessary tax increase to 6.6 percent, down from almost 12 percent when the budgets originally were produced.

Working together, Town Manager Gary Brown and School Superintendent Paul Perzanoski sliced $1.2 million from the original budget proposal to meet the council’s 7 percent threshhold.

As it is, the 6.6 increase would add $1.64 to the current tax rate of $24.90 per $1,000 of a home’s assessed value. The new rate of $26.54 means that a home valued at $200,000 would be taxed at $5,308 — $328 more than this year.

However, the amount of tax increase could change depending on what the state provides Brunswick in revenue sharing — currently $1.5 million.

Appropriations Committee members late last week agreed to a budget that would have cut revenue sharing by 35 percent — leaving Brunswick with a $508,000 gap to be made up either through additional cuts, tax increases or a combination of the two.

However, it could get worse: Gov. Paul LePage has said he wants to eliminate revenue sharing entirely, and he vowed to veto the state budget as proposed. If that happens, Brunswick would be left with a cavernous $1.5 million revenue hole to backfill.

Also Tuesday, voters decided the ballot’s other question — whether to continue to hold budget validation elections — by a two-to-one margin with 868 in favor, 407 opposed and 26 blank.

Each validation election costs the town $5,000 to $7,000 in staffing and labor, according to Town Clerk Fran Smith.

jtleonard@timesrecord.com

The Times Record Sustaining Sponsor
We believe a community must be informed to thrive. bowdoin.edu