After residents rejected the school budget twice with overwhelming numbers, the Lisbon School Committee voted earlier this week to cut $121,253 from the proposed 2025-26 school budget.

Superintendent Richard Green recommended the cuts from the $21.2 million budget, looking more at professional services instead of contractual obligations, such as teachers and staff. Those reductions would require a 90-day notice, which would extend employment into the school year before those positions can be eliminated.

Items cut include adult education, which is administered by Wales-based Regional School Unit 4, and an athletic trainer position, which had yet to be filled. Funding for a school resource officer was also eliminated, but police department officials told Green they would make sure the position remained intact.

“You cannot have another scenario of voting five times,” School Committee member Leonard Lednum said, referring to another contentious vote a few years ago. “Not only do taxpayers deserve for us to have a budget, our staff deserves it and our students and families depend on it. We got to come together somehow and agree.”

With residents seething over a double-digit tax hike due to an accounting error with the municipal budget, voters only had one place in June to show their displeasure with the process. An overwhelming 70% of voters rejected the school budget on its first attempt.

Dozens of town residents packed the Town Council chamber for the past few months, outraged by the anticipated 18.6% tax increase resulting from the municipal budget, school budget, county taxes and the water department. Parents were equally passionate about not cutting the school budget when they filled the School Committee meeting following the first no vote.

The committee and Town Council voted to send the same budget back to voters with no reductions. Earlier this month, the school referendum failed again, this time by a 3-2 margin.

Any cuts made now to the budget will have no impact on taxes immediately. Since the Town Council has signed off on the tax commitment amount for the year, any cuts made now would be placed in the undesignated fund or an escrow fund.

Green said the arithmetic error that put the town in its current financial predicament also affected the School Department.

He noted that last year, voters supported an increase in the school budget of $550,000. However, the amount was never included when municipal officials calculated last year’s tax bills. So this year’s upcoming tax bill is essentially a two-year tax increase, Green said.

“This is what is throwing a lot of the numbers off,” he said.

The actual increase for the schools for 2025-26 is less than 3%.

A public hearing on the new budget is scheduled for Sept. 2. A third vote on the budget will be held Oct. 7.

With the latest budget rejection, the group opposing the budget is now turning its attention to changing the charter to allow residents to vote on the municipal budget, as they do now with the school budget.