On Jan. 8, voters in Regional School Unit 38 passed a facilities improvement bond for $5.8 million with 427 votes — 6 percent of the roughly 6,200 registered voters in the four towns, with Mount Vernon decisively voting it down (“Maranacook residents approve $5.8M bond for school improvements,” Jan. 9). To me, that seems like a horribly disappointing number of votes for such an expenditure and makes me wonder where any blame might fall in the way it was organized.

The school district’s next request is for $43.3 million for more of the same over the next 20 years. Combining these two financial requests totals $49.14 million, $2.5 million dollars per year, or $1,216 per student per year based on the current enrollment of about 1,210 students. Who spends money like that on facilities only partially filled to capacity with a decline in enrollment of roughly 16 percent since 2006? Business owners with multiple branches? Homeowners with more than one property? Certainly not.

In Wayne, with a total of 65 students currently, the largest of the six classes is 12 students. Yet our district continues to expand, including improving the athletic fields again and adding indoor bathrooms out by the fields. Imagine how expensive that will be considering the amount of use annually.

The only realistic way to end this kind of irresponsible behavior and spending is to vote these budget proposals down, sending a clear message that this is unacceptable.

David Hepfner

Readfield

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