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Resident urges RSU 18 board to publish clearer budget numbers and revisit town support formula
Summary
At an RSU 18 board meeting, a Rome resident urged the board to provide clearer dollar amounts on the ballot and to study a more equitable town support formula after recent votes in Rome and Belgrade failed.
Joan Moore, a Rome resident who addressed the board during public comment, pressed RSU 18 officials for greater budget transparency and a review of how towns’ contributions are calculated. "The current increases in the budget and the way that the town allocations are done to support the budget are basically unsupportable and unsustainable," Moore said, and asked that handouts she prepared be included in the meeting record.
Moore told the board that Rome contributes roughly $2,500,000 of a total town tax allocation of $3,500,000 and said per-student spending varies sharply across the region: "We spend about $17,000. Oakland is spending about $7,000," she said, noting those differences factor into her concern about fairness in the town-support formula.
Board members did not offer a detailed response on the record; Moore requested a written reply and that her handout be included in the meeting notes. The board chair moved on to the next agenda item after the public comment period concluded.
Why this matters: Moore framed her remarks in voting outcomes and local affordability, saying the ballot language available to voters lacks a dollar figure and instead asks residents to support the budget previously approved by the board. That lack of a single total dollar figure, she said, makes informed voting difficult.
What the board discussed: In later committee reporting, district staff pointed trustees to the DOE report commonly referenced as EB 279 (the state document that calculates cost and revenue allocations for each district). A finance committee speaker said the EB 279 report shows how state funding is allocated and how town contributions are derived, and that the district will provide the report for towns to review.
Next steps: Moore asked for a formal response from the board and inclusion of her materials in the meeting record. The board did not set a public deadline during the meeting; the matter may be taken up in a future committee meeting or in the board’s packet materials.
