For the first time in recent history, Wiscasset voters will vote for or against the school budget by casting a single secret ballot vote.

Voting on the $9 million budget will be Tuesday, May 27 at the Wiscasset Community Center from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. This follows a three and a half hour meeting on Saturday, May 17, when about 100 people came to the high school gym to talk about 11 categories of spending.

Dividing up the spending into these 11 categories, which are different from the ones the state has mandated in the past, is a requirement of Maine's school consolidation law.

"I'm not sure about the logic of it," Superintendent of Schools Jay McIntire said. "They were created by the Legislature."

Another provision in the law is that voters be able to raise or lower each category (warrant article) in the traditional town meeting format, then take a secret ballot vote within the next 10 days.

During the past several weeks, members of the town's budget committee have spent about 100 hours in meetings going over the proposed budget prior to Saturday's meeting. Although previous town meetings have allowed both budget committee and selectmen to make written recommendations on each warrant article, the new law prohibits this.

But that didn't stop members of the budget committee from coming forward to ask questions and from offering their opinions at Saturday's meeting.

Budget committee chairman Steve Mehrl startled the voters when he proposed amending article 13 by reducing it by $1 million. In a commentary to the newspaper this week, Mehrl explains that he knew there was no chance it would pass - he merely wanted to bring people's attention to what he calls the "flawed process" that the state has imposed on towns. Other residents complained that categories like "other staff instruction doesn't really tell you what you're voting on."

Former budget committee member Dick Grondin thought the idea of cutting $800,000 to $1 million was not so outlandish, noting that the school system got by with a $450,000 cut last year, and were able to return $375,000 this year.

Budget committee member Dick Hanson said if the school budget could be cut by about $800,000, there would be no need to take money out of the reserve account.

"Last year we took $900,000 out of the reserves, then we found out we didn't need to," he said.

Teacher Warren Cossette criticized Mehrl's motion to cut the budget, saying, "You went to all the meetings - did you ask them to cut $1 million? That's the time and the place to work it out - not jump up at the end. That's not proper procedure."

The motion to reduce the budget by $1 million was defeated 62 to 23.

All 11 categories passed by a good majority; opposing votes ranged from three or four to 17.

Another somewhat startling moment was early on in the meeting, when McIntire announced the school committee had discovered they actually needed $130,000 less than they had originally budgeted for.

Questions were raised about the over $1 million slated for special education, and whether, according to one questioner, "there is a more effective way of educating special education students." McIntire talked about the wide-ranging needs of students today, including resource rooms, speech therapy, transporting deaf students to Baxter School, and employing educational technicians.

"We have some students who need their diapers changed," one resident said. "Everybody should be attending the school board meetings. I didn't really understand much about it until I went to a few meetings. We should give them all the support we can."

Mehrl asked for a ballpark figure of how much special education money the town gets from the state. McIntire estimated the town will get $1.4 million next year.

McIntire acknowledged that Wiscasset's special education budget exceeds the EPS (Essential Programs and Services) guidelines set by the state by over $500,000. About half that amount is paid for by the towns of Alna and Westport Island, he said.

Several residents raised questions about why the per pupil cost of education in Wiscasset is still around $13,000. The state average is about $9,700, according to materials provided by the school committee.

"How do we measure up to Boothbay and Bath?" one resident asked. McIntire said he thought Boothbay was "a hair lower," and that Wiscasset is higher than Bath. According to the state Department of Education website, Bath is about $7,600 for elementary and $6,600 for secondary; Boothbay is about $8,900 for primary, and about $8,000 for secondary.

Although Wiscasset was third highest in the state in per pupil cost for 2005-2006, McIntire said it dropped to 14 th in 2006-2007, and, "although we're still well above the state average," he said the school system is now 5 th .

"If I had been here three years ago, I would have been proud that we were third in spending per pupil," Kim Anderson said.

Budget committee member Karl Tarbox said enrollment has dropped 47 percent since Maine Yankee closed.

"It would be interesting to compare the number of full time employees in the school system in 1997, when Maine Yankee closed, to the number of full time employees now," he said.

Another resident questioned the student-teacher ratio, asking whether 6 to 1 (elementary), 12 to1 (middle) and 13 to 1 (high school) are "average" ratios. McIntire said those numbers represent all the adults in the building - not just teachers. The smallest teacher to student ratio is in the kindergarten, where it is 13, he said.

Joe Grant got a round of applause when he said, "I thought Wiscasset was a really rich community. It was not until my daughter got into school that I realized it isn't. I would like to thank you for maintaining the quality of education."

Almost half the students in the town's three schools are eligible for free or reduced lunch because of the low level of their parents' income, McIntire said.

McIntire noted that the school committee's decision to close one of the three schools will save about $1 million a year.

Wiscasset High School is in the top 30 percent of the state in making AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress), which is part of the No Child Left Behind Act, McIntire said.

Budget committee member Pam Dunning wanted to know what percentage of Wiscasset's high school graduates go on to college. McIntire said the state doesn't keep records of what happens to students after they leave high school.

High School Principal Susan Poppish said she is hoping to get a grant in order to track this information. Of this year's seniors, she said 68 percent have said they are going on to higher education.