AUBURN – The Auburn School Committee cut four teachers Wednesday night in an attempt to reduce next year’s budget.

By a 5-2 vote, committee members agreed to terminate the contracts of two high school English teachers, a high school social studies teacher and a part-time elementary foreign language teacher.

Theodore Belitsos and Bethel Shields, the mayor’s representative, voted against the cuts.

“Perhaps the responsible thing is to go along with your recommendation. But that also allows us to go along like sheep to the slaughter,” Belitsos told Superintendent Barbara Eretzian. “It just seems to me that some time you have to say enough is enough.”

At issue is a $31.2 million budget approved by the committee earlier this spring but rejected by city councilors.

The budget would have added 91 cents to the city’s $29.38 property tax rate. Councilors said they didn’t want any tax increase.

Committee members began looking for ways to cut nearly $1.4 million. Last week, they learned they would have to cut another $80,000.

Among other items on the chopping block are 18 teachers, some support staff and several after-school activities.

Most of the teaching positions will be cut through attrition. The people in those positions are retiring or have decided to take other jobs.

On Wednesday, committee members had to vote to let go four teachers who weren’t planning to leave but whose positions were set to be cut anyway. Under teachers’ union contract, the school system has to give teachers 90 days notice before eliminating them or pay a fee for every day past the deadline.

The school system officially hit that 90-day deadline earlier this week.

Eretzian recommended the cuts, saying the lost positions would have the least affect on students, but committee members were loath to make the decision.

When asked for a motion to eliminate the positions, members remained silent, looking at the table or into the small audience.

Ross Leavitt finally agreed to make the motion.

“I’ll do it with reservations,” he said.

During discussion of the motion, many members said they hated to cut teachers while the city is spending money to build a new city hall.

“It’s embarrassing for me to think we’re moving into this place with new stuff,” said Jane Williams. “It feels like we have no choice here and I don’t like it.”

Many committee members lambasted the City Council, saying their $31.2 million would have meant Auburn’s first tax increase for schools since 2000, when the rate went up 1 cent. Last year, the tax rate Auburn set for school funding dropped by 37 cents, although the city raised the tax rate for other municipal functions.

“We did our job last year and yet here we are again keeping things flat. Why?” Belitsos asked. “The mill rate has gone up, but it’s not going to education. It’s going to everything but education.”

Breanna Wing, 15, was one of the few community members to attend the meeting. She sat in the audience with her father.

Wing said her classmates were worried the cuts would mean basic classes would get all the teachers, ending honors and advanced placement classes.

As Edward Little High School’s freshman class president, she asked the school committee about that, learning that the loss of the teachers would likely mean fewer advanced classes but no complete cuts.

The news was a relief to Wing.

But she still wasn’t happy to see the vote.

“Mad,” she said. “To put it simply, I was mad.”

[email protected]