The RSU 18 school board needs to send the budget back to administrators and tell them to rework the budget. If board members don’t do that, I believe they are incompetent and need to be removed.

Here is why.

First, the district has been drying up the much-needed reserves. Furthermore, according to the fiscal year 2013 audit report, the district had only $646,240 in the fund balance, which is irresponsible in itself. The district was relying on $500,000 of that fund balance to keep tax increases down during the current fiscal year. Somehow, though, they expect to have $800,000 for this coming budget year to put toward the budget. Clearly, these numbers do not add up.

The second reason the board would be irresponsible to send this budget to the voters is because the property taxes for median household in the towns would increase anywhere from $150 in Sidney to $196 in China. At times when the voters have repeatedly told the administration to keep tax increases down they have repeatedly not listened.

If this passes, the voters need to send a clear statement to the board and administration both at the public hearing and at the polls. Our superintendent used to be a business manager and should have better fiscal sense.

Let us remind him what fiscal responsibility looks like.

Tyler BackusOakland


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