RUMFORD – In less than 35 minutes on Thursday night about 75 voters from SAD 43’s four towns OK’d a $14.8 million school budget for 2007-08.

There was little to no discussion at Mountain Valley High School on the 13-article warrant from the crowd, which mainly consisted of SAD 43 teachers and administrators.

“I think this is a positive sign, because there was so much support, but this is only a small percentage of the whole SAD 43 community. The real true test will come Tuesday,” Superintendent Jim Hodgkin said after the meeting.

The district follows the budget validation process, a method by which residents of Byron, Roxbury, Mexico and Rumford vote on the budget in a town meeting-style format.

On Tuesday, June 12, voters will either validate or reject Thursday night’s approved budget of $14,792,937, which is 3.18 percent higher than this year’s budget.

According to Hodgkin, the increase was caused by fixed costs such as salaries, which went up by more than $400,000; insurances, up more than $317,000; and the district’s share of costs to operate the Region 9 School of Applied Technology, at just over $100,000 more than this year.

Hodgkin said there were more non-SAD 43 staff in the crowd than he’s seen in the past. Still, he expected to be grilled hard, because directors recommended raising $1,370,485, which exceeds Maine’s Essential Programs and Services allocation model by $882,897. Last year, the district only exceeded it by $6,000.

“We haven’t had any big changes in valuation and student populations, and we got our expenditures down to 3.18 percent over this year, but I expected more money from the state and it didn’t come through. Also, what really frustrated me is that we really didn’t get the state figures until April 24,” Hodgkin said.

Regarding the $882,897, Hodgkin said state funding for special education is $500,000 lower for this year and other miscellaneous revenues are $300,000 lower. Additionally, the district’s share of the Region 9 Vocational budget is $53,344 higher for this year.

Last year’s budget was up 2.6 percent, but the district got $1.2 million from the state. This year, he said he expected the state to fund $400,000 to $500,000, but it only committed to $160,000.

“It just doesn’t make sense. I really think this is a tough budget to support, but hopefully people will look at all the factors and support it. I think this is a difficult budget to support for Roxbury and Byron, because they get hit pretty hard this year,” Hodgkin said.

The owner of a $100,000 home in Byron will see a $172.72 increase in taxes. The same home in Roxbury would realize a $142.29 increase. School taxes for similar homes in Mexico would climb by $149.59, and by $53.16 in Rumford.

Of the district’s more than 1,575 students, 18 are from Byron, 43 are from Roxbury, 492 are from Mexico and 989 are from Rumford.

Aside from motions made to accept each article, the only other motion made was an attempt by SAD 43 Director Frank DiConzo to vote the rest of the warrant by secret ballot. It failed by a vote of 10 for and 62 against.

Byron Director Anne Simmons-Edmunds was one of the lone dissenters on every article. She said she couldn’t, in good conscience, vote to approve the budget because she had not attended any budget planning sessions.