Right to vote on school budgets under assault!!
Legislative Hearing MONDAY!
A bipartisan group of state legislators is working to take
away our right to vote on school budgets. LD 1739, “An Act To Remove the Requirement That
the Annual Budget of a Regional School Unit Must Be Approved at a Budget
Validation Referendum,” would not only repeal the state law
requiring districts to use the budget referendum process, but repeals the
budget validation law entirely. If this bill passes, school
budgets will be approved at school board meetings only and will never
go before voters for a referendum vote.
Here are the parts of LD
1739 that eliminate school budget referendum votes:
Sec. 3. 20-A MRSA
§1485, sub-§3, as enacted by PL 2007, c. 240, Pt. XXXX, §13, is amended
to read:
3. Budget
approval. A regional school unit’s budget must be approved at a regional
school unit budget meeting and by a budget validation referendum as provided.
in section 1486
Sec. 4. 20-A MRSA
§1486, as amended by PL 2009, c. 98, §1 and c. 415, Pt. B, §§7 and 8,
is repealed.
Despite requirements
that the public be given advanced notice of public hearings, the public hearing
on this bill, which would empower Maine’s education establishment and takes
voting rights away from Maine’s people, is this coming Monday, January 25,
at 2 pm in the Education Committee Room, Room 202 of the Cross Office Building,
which is behind the State House in Augusta.
This bill represents an
almost unprecedented attack on the rights of Maine voters. We need to
fill the Education Committee room and fight back against the entrenched forces
of the education establishment.
Please join us on Monday
as we speak out for the right to vote on school budgets, and please contact as
many people as you can an urge them to join us in this critically important effort
to fight back against the special interests in Augusta and the legislators who
do their bidding.
IMPORTANT: If you can’t make the hearing in person, please
email testimony to the committee clerk, David Desjardins, at David.Desjardins@legislature.maine.gov.
Ask that he distribute your testimony to the committee. That way you will still
be able to make your voice heard!
you have any questions, please contact Stephen Bowen, the director of the
Center for Education Excellence at the Maine Heritage Policy Center, at sbowen@mainepolicy.org,
or by cell phone at 207-691-7132.