LISBON – Town meeting will open at 8:30 a.m. Saturday to elect a moderator and then adjourn to the polls for the municipal officers and referendum balloting from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The business portion of town meeting on the 96-article warrant will get under way 7 p.m. Monday, May 17, at the high school gymnasium, and is expected to continue for more than one night.

The Advisory Board has reviewed all spending articles, and will recommend that voters approve both the municipal and school budgets as proposed by selectmen and the School Committee.

Town officials say an extra effort was made this year to keep all costs down as much as possible.

Highlighting the warrant are two articles seeking $4.2 million in bonds for water department projects and a request that the School Committee be authorized to look into the feasibility of forming a community school district with Durham for the purpose of building a new jointly owned high school.

Voters will be asked to:

• Accept the Marion T. Morse School building from the School Department for municipal use and to elect six members to the Advisory Board by nomination from the floor;

• Set interest on delinquent taxes of 6.5 percent, down from 7 percent last year;

• Approve amendments to the victualer’s licensing procedure;

• Designate two parcels, Knight-Colotex and The Dingley Press as Pine Tree Zones.

Combined town and school budgets total $18.74 million, a 2-percent increase, Town Manager Curtis Lunt said. That is $253,000 more for schools and $126,000 more for town spending, for a total hike of $379,000, which “in a worst case scenario is a 4-percent tax increase,” Lunt said.

However, new property value and additional state revenues may substantially reduce the predicted increase by August, when the new tax rate is set, to 0.5 mills, a 2-percent or less increase, Lunt calculates.

Over the past 10 years, property taxes have risen an average of 2.7 percent a year and values have not changed since 1990. The tax rate has been $25.25 per $1,000 of valuation for two years.

Property taxes account for 46 percent of the budget, with revenues from the state and other sources such as auto excise at 54 percent. In the fiscal year ending June 30, total non-tax revenue to date has been $9.89 million, of which $6.8 million was school revenue and $3.1 million was town revenue.