AUBURN – School officials say they appreciate the additional $1.6 million they could get from the state over the next two years.

But they can’t figure out why it isn’t more. They don’t understand how the Maine Department of Education calculated the proposed state aid.

In a spreadsheet released Wednesday, the state projected what each Maine school system would get for future aid under the governor’s plan. For Auburn, the state based everything on a $25.2 million school budget for this year and added money from there.

The problem? Auburn’s school budget, excluding local debt, is actually $28.3 million this year.

That means the state apparently based its calculations on a budget millions of dollars less than it actually is.

“It just doesn’t add up for us,” said Superintendent Barbara Eretzian during a school committee meeting Wednesday night.

Before the spreadsheet was released, Eretzian expected Auburn would get more than $2 million in additional aid over the next two years.

While Eretzian and other administrators said the spreadsheet worried them, they stopped short of calling the state wrong.

“We just don’t understand. We have lots of questions,” Eretzian said, “There are things that aren’t clear for us.”

If the spreadsheet is correct and Auburn does receive $1.6 million more over the next two years as proposed, school officials said they will be concerned about their upcoming budgets. Next year’s proposed $545,000 increase alone wouldn’t even be enough to meet salary and insurance increases, Eretzian said.

School system administrators said they tried Wednesday to speak with someone at the Maine Department of Education about the spreadsheet, but no one was available. They hope to meet with state officials in the coming weeks.