Every citizen should have the right to vote for the RSU 16 Budget at the polls. Every three years they see the following:

Question 2. Do you wish to continue the budget validation referendum process in Regional School Unit Sixteen (16) for an additional three years?

This year the RSU 16 board has advocated to do away with the polling vote and just have the district budget meeting where the budget is presented. This is held on a Tuesday evening in the spring. This year there were about 50 people there, and about half were the school board and school personnel.

If people choose “no” to the above question, then there would be no minimum amount of people in attendance to vote for the district budget. (At the Poland town meetings there is a minimum of 100 or else the meeting cannot happen.) The school budget would not go to the polls for each citizen to have a vote.

The only way to go back to voting at the polls would be to petition the board with 10% of the voters who voted in the last governor’s race. This would be the only way to get the budget back to the polls.

As a select board we want to encourage people to vote “yes” to keep the two step process: First, the district budget meeting where the budget is presented, and second, going to the polls to vote where every citizen can have a vote and voice. Vote yes.

Poland Select Board (Stephen Robinson, chair; Jane Pentheny, vice-chair; and Nathan McNally, Stanley L. Tetenman and Mary-Beth Taylor)