The committee developing a proposal to renovate and add to South Portland High School has whittled the price tag down by nearly $3 million, and will make a public presentation regarding the project next week.

The latest estimated cost of the proposed upgrade is $41.2 million, according to figures presented at a Secondary School Facilities Committee meeting last week. That is about $2.7 million less than the $43.9 million preliminary estimate the committee received last month from the architectural firm developing the proposal. More cuts are possible in the next few weeks.

The committee at the Jan. 14 meeting identified a series of cuts, savings and some projected new revenue to bring the cost down. For example, the school department plans to add $600,000 from its surplus account to the project, and cut out a number of classrooms from the plan.

The group plans to make a presentation of the proposal at a joint meeting of the council and Board of Education on Jan. 28. The public meeting will be held in the gymnasium of Brown Elementary School from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Then, the school board is expected to vote on the proposal at its Feb. 8 meeting. The plan would next go to the council for a vote on whether to put it on the June ballot. A majority of the committee says they hope the City Council will agree to send the high school project out to voters in June.

The committee also learned at the meeting that a local marketing firm has volunteered to help the group promote the proposal to voters. The committee had planned to pay for public relations advice, but BrandME Marketing on Ocean Street will work with the group for free, School Superintendent Suzanne Godin said.

The high school is under an accreditation warning from the New England Association of Schools & Colleges to improve the facility in terms of health, safety and opportunities for student learning.

The basics of the renovation/addition plan call for keeping the original 1950s part of the building, and tearing down and replacing an annex that is in poor condition with a new classroom wing. Beal Gymnasium would be renovated and have a new addition built on at a cost of nearly $4.5 million.

The high school now has about 900 students but the new building would have room for 1,200.

However, the latest cost estimate on the project to upgrade the high school is still higher than some committee members had wanted.

Tom Blake, a city councilor who is on the committee, is among a handful of members of the approximately 20-member group who had called for a cost below $40 million. Blake and others said it would be difficult to persuade city voters to approve anything higher given the economic recession.

Voters in 2007 strongly rejected a previous plan to upgrade the high school by a 3 to 1 margin. That proposal was $56 million, $14.8 million more than the latest proposal.

Blake said at the group’s Jan. 14 meeting that “I still feel under 40 (million dollars) is pretty magical.”

He said he believes that “we’ll have an uphill battle” getting the voters to approve the project as it stands.

However, Blake praised the committee, saying it had “done a great job bringing (the cost) down.” He also admitted, “I don’t know where else to cut.”

Most other committee members present said they were satisfied that the cost estimate was a pared-down, realistic one.

“The number is the number,” said Ralph Baxter Jr., who also is a school board member.

To get to the lower cost estimate, the group agreed to cut out four classrooms at a cost of $665,415 and also to have just six instead of 12 portable classrooms during construction to save $467,000. So many portables aren’t needed, the school department says.

Other savings include $600,000 in anticipated energy savings if the high school is upgraded. Anticipated revenues include an estimated $250,000 from the state’s revolving renovations fund and a $125,000 state energy efficiency grant. With the $600,000 from the school department surplus account, the total in cuts, savings and new revenues is just over $2.7 million. It would bring the cost of the project to $41,199,444.

More cuts are possible. For example, the committee is hoping the gas company will agree to shoulder the $185,000 cost of a new gas line installation.

The committee plans to continue to investigate the budget-cutting options in the coming weeks, but since they are not firm at this time, the committee didn’t include them in the $41.2 million estimate.

The committee also discussed the possibility of saving more than $2.2 million by not having the high school be a “green” building with LEED standards. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and is an international system of standards for environmentally friendly buildings.

But committee members agreed that cutting that part of the project would result in an outmoded building with high energy costs.

Greg Marles, director of building and grounds for the South Portland schools, said that “cutting LEED definitely would be very irresponsible.”

Another idea floated was saving $300,000 by moving the location of a planned robotics room from a new, renovated Beal Gymnasium to the high school building. However, although construction costs would be lower if the room were moved to the high school, the new location could be problematic, said Jeanne Crocker, the high school principal. For example, she said, the robotics room would need to be open for after-school use when the high school is closed.

Committee members said they also want some funds for the project to come from the municipal budget. Baxter called on the city to contribute an amount on par to the $600,000 the school department is adding from its reserve account.

The group also discussed its plan to send the proposal to city voters in June.

Committee members have said they want city voters to decide the issue then instead of at the November general election. Construction costs currently are low in the economic recession, and the group says that the high school plan needs to be approved as soon as possible to take advantage of the favorable construction climate.

Some committee members expressed doubt about a June referendum.

“It’s a real hard time to sell this to the voters,” said one committee member, Gene Swiger.

Peter Stocks, a city resident and parent who attended the meeting, urged the group not to try to float the proposal in June, when the school and city budgets are being approved and when taxes and the economic recession will be foremost on voters’ minds.

He said the group should wait until November or until 2011. “It all is for naught if this doesn’t pass,” Stocks said of the committee’s efforts.

Blake said he agreed with Stocks’ comments. He said he supports a November referendum because he doesn’t believe June gives the committee enough time to inform voters about the proposal. “We need time to put a marketing program together,” he said.

But other committee members favored a June vote.

Godin urged the committee to go forward with its plans. “The plan is right, the scope is right and the time is right,” she said.

The school board will be retiring some debt from a previous renovation of Skillin School just as debt payments for the high school project come on line, Godin said. That would make less of an impact on residents’ tax bills, she said.

The impact of the project on the tax rate is not yet known, but estimates are expected at the Jan. 28 meeting.

Godin said that Don Russell, founder of BrandME Marketing, will assist the group in getting out the message that upgrading the high school is essential.

Although committee members at their meetings have repeatedly said the group needs “to sell” the project to voters, Godin said, “This is not an attempt to sell this to the community.” Instead, she said, the group will “get out information.”

She said Russell, a city resident and Planning Board member, will attend some the group’s meetings. She said the committee also may “convene a focus group” of community stakeholders. It could use the group to “test messages,” Godin said, and find out if there are “other messages that they’d rather hear.”

Russell said he wants to hear from the committee. He said, “Mostly I will be a listening and sounding board initially” to help the group determine what its message is.

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