SCARBOROUGH – After Scarborough voters narrowly rejected the proposed school budget on May 13, the budget is set for a second round of discussion this week.

Officials have whittled the school spending package by $138,000 to $43.4 million, which would lead to a 3.25 percent increase in taxes overall, or a tax rate increase of 48 cents per $1,000 of valuation under the combined budget, according to Town Manager Tom Hall.

The Town Council was set to vote on the slightly reduced school budget at its meeting on Wednesday, after the Current’s deadline. The council was also expected to set a public hearing on the new school budget for 7 p.m. on Wednesday, June 4.

In addition, the council was expected to schedule a second town-wide referendum on the school budget, which would require $36.1 million from local taxpayers, for June 10, when the statewide primaries will be held.

Last week, with low voter turnout, residents rejected the initial school budget, which called for $36.5 million from taxes and would have led to a 52-cent increase in the tax rate under the combined budget.

This week Hall said he’s unsure whether councilors would seek to reduce the school budget even further than the $138,000 removed from the new fiscal year spending by the Board of Education’s Finance Committee following the failed referendum.

Under a new approval process put in place by the Legislature several years ago, in stand-alone school districts like Scarborough the Town Council sets the overall amount of school spending and then that figure goes to voters for final approval.

Christine Massengill, chairwoman of the school board, told the Current this week that getting the budget passed next month is “really about educating our voters about what is in the budget and what isn’t.”

She added, “We need voters to understand the impact of not restoring programs that have been lost in previous budget cycles. One example of that is our world language program that has declined so much that students who enter high school will have little more than an introduction.”

Massengill said the message the school board is attempting to get out is that they are “trying to slowly and incrementally improve the quality of education in Scarborough, which benefits not only our students, but our town as a whole.”

Like Superintendent George Entwistle, Massengill expressed disappointment with last week’s rejection of the initial school budget and said that while “there are still good things happening in the Scarborough schools for our students, (reducing the budget request) will certainly slow down our program restorations and reinvestments.”

In defense of increasing school spending by several million dollars overall, she said, “We have been able to demonstrate that where we have made incremental investments and begun restorations, we have seen corresponding improvements in student learning. The investments and restorations are the right ones – the ones most important to meeting the needs of all of our students.”

According to Town Clerk Yolande Justice, of the more than 15,300 registered voters in town, only 2,182 came out to vote on the school budget during the May 13 referendum. The initial school budget was rejected 1,169-1,013, Justice said.

A second question asking whether the budget was too high or too low had 1,257 voters saying the proposed new spending package was too high. Of the remaining voters, 516 called the proposed budget “acceptable” and another 370 said it was too low.

Following last week’s rejection of the school budget, Entwistle issued a press release in which he said, “Needless to say, there are many folks (certainly myself included) who are disappointed in the results of the referendum.”

He said the school board and Town Council “worked hard to present the voters with a reasonable and responsive budget” while also acknowledging that, “as is typical, the school budget has the greatest impact on local tax funds.”

Entwistle said “key drivers” for the uptick in school spending included cost increases in energy, health benefits, contractual obligations and debt service.

“The vote was split with a small number of votes causing the validation to fail,” he added.

Going forward, Entwistle said, “We will work with the Town Council to craft a proposal that will ultimately be supported by Scarborough voters while allowing us to continue to improve the quality of education in the Scarborough schools.”