Sec. 1. 20-A MRSA §1305, sub-§3, as amended by 1993, c. 372, §2, is further amended to read:

3. Failure to approve a budget. If the budget or a portion of the budget fails to receive a majority vote at the referendum, the board of directors shall decide in a public proceeding whether a subsequent votes vote on the portion of the budget that was defeated must be conducted in accordance with the referendum procedure in subsection 2 or at a district budget meeting held at a single place in the district in accordance with procedures in sections 1303 and 1304. Subsequent votes A subsequent vote conducted in accordance with the referendum procedure in subsection 2 must be held within 45 days. Subsequent votes A subsequent vote conducted in accordance with sections 1303 and 1304 must be held within 30 days. These referenda or meetings The referendum or meeting must be held solely for the purpose of approving an alternative operating school budget to replace the part of the proposed budget that the voters failed to approve. The board may continue in this manner until an alternative budget is adopted. If the budget or the portion of the budget fails to receive a majority vote at the subsequent vote, then the budget or the portion of the budget adopted in the immediately preceding year replaces the budget or portion of the budget that the voters failed to approve.

Sec. 2. 20-A MRSA §1305-B, sub-§5, as enacted by PL 1999, c. 710, §5, is amended to read:

5. Failure to approve budget. If the voters do not validate the budget approved in the district budget meeting at the budget validation referendum vote, the board of directors shall hold another district budget meeting in accordance with sections 1303 and 1304 at least 10 days after the referendum to vote on a budget approved by the board of directors. The budget approved at the subsequent district budget meeting must be submitted to the voters for validation at referendum in accordance with this section. The process must be repeated until a budget is approved at a district budget meeting and validated at referendum. If a budget is not approved and validated before July 1st of each year, section 1308 applies. If the budget fails to receive a majority vote at the subsequent vote, then the budget adopted in the immediately preceding year replaces the budget that the voters failed to approve.