Scarborough town leaders are hoping that a new process for formulating the municipal and school budgets will lead to easy passage of the proposed new fiscal year spending measure, which is up 4.4 percent.

The $81.7 million combined municipal and school budget proposal is $3.5 million more than this year’s budget of $78.2 million, and could lead to a 51-cent tax increase per $1,000 of valuation.

For the owner of a home valued at $300,000, the annual property tax bill would increase by about $153, Town Manager Tom Hall said, and the new tax rate would be $16 per $1,000 of valuation.

Hall and Superintendent of Schools George Entwistle presented their respective budgets at a meeting of the Town Council last week, where the spending package received unanimous approval on first reading.

In addition to a public hearing in May, town leaders are also holding a town hall-style budget forum at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, April 27, at Scarborough High School. Residents can submit questions beforehand by going online to www.scarboroughmaine.org.

For a town where the budget process in recent years has been acrimonious, the April 6 first reading of the fiscal year 2016-2017 budget was surprisingly uneventful. It took three tries last year before voters finally approved a school budget.

Last week, Entwistle specified that his $47.5 million budget, up nearly $2.3 million, is not a “pie-in-the-sky budget,” but a “mission-critical” one, which includes no additions and that will allow the school department to retain “exactly the same services.”

Much of the increase in school spending, he told the council, is due to a more than $1 million cut in state subsidy. Entwistle said that overall, Scarborough expects to receive 22.7 percent less funding from the state for the new fiscal year.

The nearly $31.6 million municipal budget is also up – by nearly $1.1 million, Hall said last week. The increase is mostly due to personnel costs, the loss of grant funding and a 5 percent increase in benefits for town staff, he said.

Hall said the town budget is designed “to ensure we concentrate (our) financial resources on core functions first and foremost,” and it did not include eight new positions, for which he said, “there is clear and convincing justification.”

The good news, Hall added, is that, “many of the operational changes and energy efficiency efforts from prior years are producing savings, which (have) allowed for no reductions in service levels.”

When it came time for council comment on the combined spending package, Councilor Chris Caiazzo praised the proposal saying it’s “very respectful and reasonable.” Councilor Kate St. Clair said, “I feel like both sides of the table are hearing each other.” Compared with the tone a year ago, there’s been “a remarkable change,” Councilor Peter Hayes added.

In order to avoid the tensions, acrimony and dissent of recent budget cycles, this time around the council and school board Finance Committees have worked together for several months to make sure both sides are on the same page before the combined budget was presented publicly.

Following last week’s council meeting, Donna Beeley, chairwoman of the Board of Education, told the Current that this approach has “made a huge difference” and she’s hopeful all the hard work of the two committees will now pay off.

She called the school budget, in particular, a “very reasonable and responsible budget” and said that because the school district has worked so closely with the council “we’re very optimistic about this budget season.”

Sun Media Wire staff writer Kate Irish Collins contributed to this report.

Alex Acquisto can be reached at 781-3661 ext. 106 or [email protected]. Follow Alex on Twitter: @AcquistoA.