FAYETTE — Voters in Fayette and Winthrop probably will be asked to vote again on the budget for the school superintendent’s office because of mistakes at the recent district budget meeting.
On April 11 in Winthrop, voters approved the proposed $380,315 budget for the administrative and business offices of Alternative Organizational Structure 97.
Board members later learned that some of the procedures at that joint meeting — which is supposed to follow the format of a town meeting — were faulty, according to Dick Darling, vice chairman of the AOS school board.
Darling said a moderator should have been elected at the meeting, the town clerks should have been sworn in, and proposed amendments to the articles should have been permitted. None of those steps happened.
“We will have another public meeting and make sure we do it in accordance with the law, so the budget we do pass will be legal and correct,” Darling said Tuesday.
The AOS board was scheduled to meet in an emergency session Tuesday evening to start the process again with a vote to approve the budget and send it on to a districtwide meeting vote. Darling said it could go to voters as soon as Tuesday, April 24, the earliest date possible, given a seven-day notice requirement.
Darling said the hope is to get the voters’ approval of the budget in time to include the final figures in the proposed budget for the Winthrop schools.
The Winthrop school budget is scheduled to be presented to the Winthrop Town Council on May 7. Council approval is required for that town’s school budget.
“There was a sense we should do this again and do it properly so everything is transparent, said Superintendent Gary Rosenthal. “I am anticipating the same budget will be moved forward to another public vote.”
He also said the schools’ attorneys indicated a new vote was not strictly necessary, because there were no challenges at the previous meeting.
The Winthrop school board is scheduled to hold another session at 6 p.m. April 25 to continue work on the 2012-13 school year budget.
The Fayette school budget goes to voters June 16 at their annual Town Meeting.
Betty Adams — 621-5631
badams@centralmaine.com
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