Lisbon voters passed a school budget on the third try after a tax revolt roiled the Androscoggin County town this summer.
In Tuesday’s election, 55.% of voters were in favor of the budget, with 44.9% opposed. The $21.3 million budget is a 2.4% increase over the previous year, and it barely budged through the town’s three votes on it over the course of 2025.
Its passage marks the end of a volatile budget process which saw voters, outraged over high taxes and a budget approved by the Town Council, seize on the school budget as a point of local accountability. Opposition was rallied by former state Rep. Dale Crafts, the 2020 Republican nominee for Maine’s 2nd District, who won a council seat Tuesday.
Gregory Garnett and Roger Bickford, two of the three candidates that ran alongside Crafts as a conservative slate won seats in the election that decided four of the council’s seven positions. Charlie Turgeon, a more moderate candidate also focused on reducing tax burdens, also won. Incumbent Jo-Jean Keller, who has expressed reluctance to cut the budget, lost her seat.
It means that Crafts and his allies will not control the council outright but will have seats at the table as Lisbon forms a charter commission to reconsider its founding document. More than two-thirds of voters approved that at the ballot box Tuesday.
The commission was largely the result of work by Turgeon, who spearheaded a petition asking the Town Council to allow residents to vote on town budgets in the future. While he had hoped to change policy through the council, the body determined that such a drastic change would require a full-scale charter review. That process could take years to complete.
Crafts pitched abolishing the council and returning to a simpler select board form of government Lisbon used until the mid-2000s. His presence on the council may influence the commission to consider moves in that direction.
Daniel O’Connor is a Report for America corps member who covers rural government as part of the partnership between the Bangor Daily News and The Maine Monitor, with additional support from BDN and Monitor readers.
