LISBON

The Lisbon School Committee approved $15.44 million in spending on Monday for the 2015-16 school year. This is the third time since the budget planning cycle began that the committee has sent a spending plan for consideration to the town council.

The $15,441,270 spending plan — that includes money for adult education — was approved 4-1 after an at-times heated conversation amongst school committee members and members of the public.

Much of the past controversy has centered around the school committee’s proposal to use more than $400,000 in excess bond proceeds for a track and gym project to pay an upcoming debt service payment for those projects. The school department had planned to pay that debt through an increase in taxes for the locally approved and funded bonds.

This latest proposed spending plan would increase taxes by $56,000 and use $154,237 in interest from the bonds to put toward the debt service payment, rather than using any of the principal, based on guidance from its bond counsel.

The town council lowered the school committee’s last two proposed budgets. A $15.1 million spending plan and a second $15.05 million plan were rejected by voters in budget validation referendums held June 9 and Aug. 11, respectively.

In a non-binding question on both ballots, voters indicated that they rejected the budget proposal because they believed the proposal was too low.

The school committee expects to present the latest spending plan to the town council on Sept. 15. The third school budget referendum may be held Sept. 22. The council is slated to set the dates tonight for the referendum.

The budget validation referendums will continue until a budget is adopted.

School committee member Pete Reed said he didn’t think the council was “going to release any money, period.”

“I don’t think it’s going to work out because (councilors) don’t want to meet with us, they don’t want to talk to us, they don’t want to even try to compromise or do anything,” Reed said.

School Committee Chairwoman Traci Austin said that using bond interest, as well as additional state revenue and savings from not replacing a bus, was “a reasonable compromise” on behalf of the school committee.

“It’s a shot in the dark to find out what it is the council will allow us to do,” Austin said. “We’re between a rock and a hard place. We still have a school (department) and children to educate and I’m willing to try this.”

School committee member Gina Mason cast the lone opposing vote against the spending plan.

Mason also launched Monday’s meeting into a brief debate regarding the number of nurses employed in the schools when she asked why Lisbon is over the state Department of Education’s Essential Programs and Services calculation for staffing levels in some areas.

The school committee slightly exceeds the EPS model for how many teachers, administration, library technicians, clerical staff and nurses the school department should have, and is below in other areas. There are three nurses instead of 1.6, so a nurse at all three schools.

There are many students with individualized educational plans who often require administration of medication and other services during lunch, said Superintendent Richard Green. School officials have looked very close at the EPS model for staffing, he said.

Austin said the EPS model is meant to be a “bare minimum.” She said she doesn’t want to open staff to liability as a result of not having a nurse available to administer an injection or medication.

Mason noted other school systems share a nurse among more than one school.

Reed responded: “I don’t care what other school systems do.”

Resident Mike Hebert asked about employee raises included in the budget, which Green said are at 2 percent at most. Hebert told school committee members to remember that most residents are not getting that level of raises.

Mason said she agreed with concerns from other board members about harming children’s education through cuts in the spending proposal. However, she warned: “I think through all of this we ignore the fact that we have elderly in this town; we ignore the fact that there are many foreclosed homes in this town.”

Resident Lorraine Wight said the bubble of foreclosure has now peaked and is closing out. Foreclosures in town aren’t because of taxes but rather because of the foreclosure rate, she said.

Wight said the town council should not pit the elderly against Lisbon children.

“You can take care of the elderly without hurting the young,” Wight said.

dmoore@timesrecord.com