NAPLES – About 1,000 voters from the four towns comprising School Administrative District 61 went to the polls Thursday and again rejected the district’s proposed budget for next year.

The budget failed by a vote of 495-479.

A $26.8 million version of the budget failed in May. Thursday’s second budget beat-down came after the school board spent most of June paring a further $268,000 from the budget. Cuts included a full-time kindergarten teacher, part-time library clerk as well as a program designed to help eighth-graders transition to high school.

Now that voters have rejected the second version, school board members must decide how to proceed. They will have to do it without the help of former Superintendent Patrick Phillips, who on July 1, the day after the budget decision, began a new job leading Regional School Unit 23 (Saco, Dayton and Old Orchard Beach). With Phillips departed, the former assistant superintendent, Kathleen Beecher, takes over as interim superintendent.

According to Beecher, the school board’s five-member finance committee – made up of Laurie Mondville, Richard Merritt, Carol Swanson-Murphy, Greg Smith and Janice Barter – will meet Wednesday, July 6, to discuss next steps. The meeting starts at 7 p.m. at the district’s central office. The public is invited. Whatever move the committee makes will need to be approved by the larger 13-member school board.

With the budget failing by a mere 16 votes district-wide, Beecher said board members will have to decide whether to scrap the proposed budget in favor of further cuts, or send it out to the public again unchanged hoping for a different result.

“At that meeting on the 6th, they’ll decide on what do we do,” Beecher said Friday morning, her first day as acting superintendent.

Based on state statute, Beecher said the school system is allowed to operate on the newly proposed budget, rather than the budget that ended June 30. But, she added, “we’ll have to be careful with each decision we make.”

Despite the challenging budget situation, Beecher is excited to be on the job. “This does put a little damper on things but great things are in place and I’m very excited to have the job,” she said.

For the last six years, Beecher has served as assistant superintendent for SAD 61. Before that she was Sebago Elementary School’s principal for two years. Prior to coming to the district, she taught at Longfellow Elementary School in Portland for 15 years. Prior to that Beecher taught for five years at an elementary school in Waterville.