SAD 41 budget passes

LaGrange citizens favor Cook School closure

By Stuart Hedstrom 
Staff Writer

    MILO — By a vote of 66 to 46, voters in the four communities making up SAD 41 gave their approval to a budget of $8,034,429 for the 2014-15 academic year. This figure approved during the June 30 referendum represents an increase of a little more than $193,000 from the previous year.

    The responsibility of the four towns for the SAD 41 budget is up by $21,463 to approximately $2,022,770. This breaks down to increases for each of the communities, with Atkinson’s assessment up by a little more than $4,000 to nearly $210,000, Brownville’s being up by about $5,400 to over $558,400, LaGrange seeing a near $1,260 increase to slightly less than $345,000 and Milo’s assessment rising by approximately $10,740 to a figure of just under $909,400.
    In addition to a ballot question asking to approve the 2014-15 budget, residents of LaGrange were asked if they favored authorizing the school board to close the Marion C. Cook School. These SAD 41 voters gave their approval to proceed with the closure plan by a vote of 46 to 6
    Shuttering the building would provide an estimated saving of $304,680.48, but citizens could have opted for the town to fund the facility for another year. Most recently the Cook School was the site of the Carleton Project and the Academy Program, with K-5 students attending Milo Elementary and all SAD 41 sixth-graders being at Penquis Valley as part of the district-wide realignment that was enacted for the 2013-14 school year.

SAD 41
school budget
validation

To approve a $8,034,429
spending plan
for the 2014-15
academic year

    Yes        No

       66        46   

For LaGrange citizens,
do you favor authorizing the SAD 41 board
of directors to close
the Marion C. Cook School?

    Yes        No
   
    46        6