POLAND – Voters here approved an increased school budget at their annual town meeting Saturday despite a warning from one state lawmaker that it will mean higher taxes for townspeople.
The crowd of about 200 voters also passed an ordinance to control barking dogs and approved the purchases of a new rescue vehicle and a minivan for the school system.
Two other articles that called for a 180-day moratorium on subdivisions and a slowing of other residential growth did not draw such favorable support.
Voters shot down both controversial measures after the leaders of the petition drive to get them on the warrant announced that they themselves planned to vote against them.
It took voters more than eight hours to get through the long list of articles on this year’s warrant. The day began with a long discussion about the school budget for 2006.
In the end, voters approved the budget of $12,895,076, an increase of 3 percent. About $5.3 million of the new budget will come from tax revenues.
Maine Sen. Lois Snowe-Mello, R-Poland, told voters that state lawmakers drastically cut funding to rural communities earlier this year with the passage of LD-1, legislation that established state funding levels for Maine’s school districts.
“I ask you to be very careful with your spending this year,” she said. “Rural communities have been hit very hard, and there is going to be a tax increase.”
Snowe-Mello told voters that she voted against LD-1 because rural communities, such as Poland, will suffer, while wealthier school districts, including Auburn, Portland and Bangor, received more state money.
The increase in Poland’s school budget was driven by higher health insurance costs and more spending for salaries, supplies and technology, including the purchase and repair of computers.
Snowe-Mello said Poland has the highest per-student cost of all schools in Maine because of excessive spending. She blamed a “top-heavy administration” and smaller-than-average class sizes.
“We have assistants to assistants,” she said. “It’s things like that, that keep adding up. We’re living above our means.”
Ike Levine, chairman of the Poland School Committee, defended the budget.
“We could eliminate $600,000 to meet what the state says is adequate funding,” he said. “We don’t want what is adequate. We want excellence.”
Most voters agreed with Levine, passing the budget by an overwhelming majority.
Saturday’s town meeting ended with an equally strong vote against a citizen-initiated measure to slow residential growth. A petition with 199 signatures sought to resurrect a 1978 ordinance, placing a 180-day moratorium on subdivisions and slowing non-subdivision growth.
The leaders of the petition drive had revised the 1978 ordinance so that the moratorium would only apply to rural residential and forest zones, but they didn’t properly attach the revised ordinance to the petition, Town Manager Richard Chick said.
As a result, Chick said, a vote for the measure would have placed a moratorium on subdivisions in every part of town, as dictated in the 1978 ordinance.
Voters, including those who organized the petition, indicated with another overwhelming vote that they didn’t want that.
Here is what voters decided on other issues:
• They voted in favor of spending $18,900 on a new minivan to be used by the schools and recreation department.
• They voted in favor of spending $538,402 on a new rescue vehicle.
• They voted in favor of a barking dog ordinance that prohibits canines from barking consecutively for 20 minutes or intermittently for an hour at passing cars, rodents, blowing leaves and other outdoor activities.
• They voted against a measure that would have prohibited more than one member of a family from holding an elective office at the same time.
Staff writer Lisa Chmelecki contributed to this report.
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