TURNER — Tri-town residents approved the SAD 52 board’s $27.4 million budget last week and got some good news: it appears the district will return $575,000 to Turner, Greene and Leeds in June.

Superintendent Kimberly Brandt said about 50 residents from the three towns turned out Thursday night to approve the budget for 2018-2019.

The budget adds and expands a few positions and brings varsity indoor track and golf to the high school.

“It was exactly what you want your district meeting to be,” Brandt said. “You want (voters) to ask questions when they have questions, you are hoping for a positive vote after your long budget process and that’s exactly what we ended up with.”

The budget is up 4.68 percent over this fiscal year, but the tax impact is less due to additional state funds. As proposed, a home valued at $100,000 would be taxed an additional $37 in Turner, $29 in Leeds and $40 in Greene.

The budget heads to a public vote to validate the $27.4 million at each of the town offices on Friday.

Brandt said due to an item passed during the budget process last year — if the district received additional state subsidy beyond what it expected, those funds would be returned to the towns — it looks like $575,000 will go back to towns as the books close on this school year.

“That’s great news,” she said. “Town managers will decide how they’re going to use that, whether to offset taxes or whether they have other ways to use it. The idea, hopefully, is to do some offsetting.”

Voters handled a similar question differently this year, turning down a warrant article that would have returned 100 percent of any additional subsidy to the towns. 

Brandt said she doesn’t expect additional funds, but if that happened next year, “we would use that instead for our schools.”

At the school board’s regular meeting after the budget vote Thursday, board members also reappointed all probationary contract and first year continuing contract teachers, according to Brandt.

“That’s always a positive thing,” she said. “We want our good professional staff to stay.”

kskelton@sunjournal.com