Almost a month after voters in the Caribou-based RSU 39 emphatically voted down the district’s initial fiscal year 2026 budget, they again rejected a new version with $60,000 in savings in a referendum Tuesday.
In Caribou — the largest municipality within the two-town RSU 39, and the only one to see a tax increase because of the budget — residents voted overwhelmingly against it, 449 to 262.
In Stockholm, where the budget’s impact on local taxes would have decreased by almost 5 percent, or $6,350, residents voted in favor, 15-8, not nearly enough to make up the difference.
Tuesday’s outcome restarts the district’s budget process for a third time. After the school board meets Wednesday to confirm the referendum results, the district will review the budget for potential changes, which Superintendent Jane McCall said could include position eliminations.
After that, it will go before the school board for recommendation. If the board recommends the budget, it will go to a public vote for approval, followed by a third referendum. Dates for each stage of the process have not yet been set.
McCall said she’s disappointed in the lack of community support for the budget, but more disappointed in the voter turnout.
“We have somewhere around 5,000 registered voters and both times we took the budget to the community, it was less than 800 [voters] each time,” McCall said. “That’s of concern.”
The district averaged 679 voters between the two referendums, down from the 887 residents that went to the polls in 2024, when the budget passed with a 468 to 419 vote.
Prior to this June, RSU 39 had never had a budget rejected by voters. Now it has had two.
Its second proposed budget totaled $24.89 million, a $1.4 million increase over the previous year with an increased taxpayer impact of $227,143 on Caribou residents.
It’s a decrease of just over $60,000 from the $284,582 that would have fallen on taxpayers if the district’s initial budget was approved. After failing in the first referendum, district officials learned they could have a portion of the salary for the district’s new full-time curriculum coordinator position — which is currently unfilled — covered by a federal grant. It also found $25,000 in revenue from loaning the curriculum coordinator to another district for one day a week.
Overall, the $1.4 million increase is nearly identical to that in the RSU’s fiscal year 2025 budget, but that budget put an additional $1 million on the shoulders of taxpayers, half of which will appear on this year’s tax bills because the district’s fiscal year overlaps with the city of Caribou. More than $1 million in increased state subsidies lessened that burden in the 2026 budget.
“This is the best budget — the least impact to the taxpayers — we’ve been able to submit in three years,” RSU 39 business manager Mark Bouchard told The County on June 13.
Until a third referendum is held, the district will operate under the budget that voters rejected Tuesday, because it was approved by a public vote in a July 1 budget meeting, which is considered part of the budget approval process.
