WATERVILLE — A community educational forum that had been scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday at Waterville Senior High School was postponed because of a snowstorm and lack of parking at the school, according to school Superintendent Eric Haley.
The forum, hosted by the Waterville Board of Education, will be rescheduled after February vacation, which is next week, Haley said.
Meanwhile, the Alternative Organizational Structure 92 school district, which serves students in Waterville, Winslow and Vassalboro, announced an early dismissal Wednesday as the snowstorm approached.
School officials have said the “community educational forum” is intended to help explain to residents how the school budget is developed and what taxpayer money is used for in schools.
Sara Sylvester, chairwoman of the Board of Education, has said officials want to talk with the public about “what it costs, what it takes to have great teachers. We want to pay our teachers, and we want to stay within a budget, and we’ve been very good with our budgets.”
Sylvester said it would be the first time the board has hosted such a forum before developing a budget, but members decided to do so after last year’s contentious budget season, in which a group of people attended city meetings and expressed concern about and unhappiness with the budget.
The long budgeting season ended in mid-August last year when city councilors voted 6-1 to approve a proposed $37.6 million municipal and school budget for 2016-17 that reduced the tax rate by $5 from $27.80 per $1,000 of valuation to $22.80.
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