TURNER – Voters from Greene, Leeds and Turner will consider the River Valley school district’s annual budget Thursday night.

The annual SAD 52 district budget meeting is held at Leavitt Area High School and is open to residents of the three towns. This year voters will consider 18 budget-related warrant articles.

“The average tax increase for education this year in the three towns amounts to 4.97 percent,” said SAD 52 business manager Chris Trenholm. “We’re very aware of controlling costs.”

He said the district recently reviewed its operating cost per pupil and found that the cost in SAD 52 was $773 less than the state average of $6,640 per student one year ago at the end of the 2001-02 school year. Of the 261 school districts in Maine, 203 spend more per pupil than SAD 52 and 57 spend less.

The percentage increase from the 2002-03 budget to the 2003-04 budget is 5.22 percent for a total of $953,022. The major components of the increase are $625,000 for salary and benefits increases, $166,000 for debt service that includes payment on the recent land purchase adjacent to Greene Central School that was approved by voters in a referendum in March and the first payment for repairs to the Leavitt Area High School roof.

Trenholm noted that other increases in expenses include a $53,970 insurance hike and an increase of $19,476 for heating oil. “Of the $953,000, those components make up roughly $866,000 of the increase. It’s about 91 percent of the increase,” he said. “The rest of it is spread all over the place from equipment, to books, to supplies, to building maintenance those types of items.

The annual budget meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday, in the Leavitt Area High School auditorium. A meeting in the cafeteria at 6 p.m. will be held to elect new school district officers for the upcoming year, including a new school board chairperson and a new finance committee.