Voters in South Portland and Cape Elizabeth approved proposed school budgets for the fiscal year 2022, with South Portland seeing the lowest voter turnout on record.

Cape Elizabeth announced on June 8 that the election held during the day saw a 5 percent voter turnout of 439 residents. The $29.9 million school budget was approved 294-145.

When asked how they feel about the school budget, 168 voters said they thought it was too high, and 203 voters said it was acceptable. Two ballots were blank and 66 voters said they thought the budget was too low.

In South Portland, 456 voters approved the proposed $54 million school budget at the June 8 election 351-105, City Clerk Emily Scully said. She said the 2.1 percent turnout was a record low.

Scully said a low turnout is not uncommon for these types of elections.

“While this was the lowest one on record, it’s not really statistically out of margin for other similar elections where just the school budget appears on this election cycle,” she said. “The city does do some advertising for this, and I have heard there have been request for more advertisement of this sort of election in the future, which I will take under advisement.”

There were no accompanying state ballots this year, and according to the history of voter turnout for South Portland since 2008, the last school budget referendum with no accompanying ballots in 2015 saw a 3.22 percent turnout.

Other municipalities also saw a low turnout this year, said Scully.