BETHEL – By a margin of more than 2 to 1, residents in SAD 44 approved a budget of $9,998,961 on Tuesday.

Superintendent David Murphy said Friday morning that the budget is 1.6 percent more than this year.

“We’re glad it passed. The board worked long and hard on it as represented by the small increase,” he said.

The 980-pupil district provides education to students of Bethel, Andover, Greenwood, Woodstock and Newry.

Murphy said the student population hovered between 1,000 and 1,200 for many years until the last couple of years. The staff has also experienced a small decrease this year from about 195 to 190.

He said the average staff salary increase was between 2.5 and 3 percent, largely because of the state mandate to begin all new teachers at a $30,000 annual salary.

He said the district was able to offset salary increases through using creative measures such as administrative cost consolidation, to keep costs down.

For example, he said the positions of curriculum director, special education director and business manager are no longer full-time, but hired on a contractual basis when needed, reducing the previous costs by two-thirds.

He said SAD 44 also contracts for part-time food service coordination with neighboring SAD 43.

Eliminating the three administrative positions did not cause anyone to lose their job. Instead, people who had held those positions retired or moved on to other jobs. The same held true for the one elementary teacher at Andover Elementary School and three Telstar Regional High School teaching positions that were eliminated.

Each of those employees had either left the district for other jobs or retired.

Bethel voters also elected Lainey Cross and Lynn Arizzi to three-year terms on the 17-person school board, Pat Nasta to a two-year term and Roberta Taylor to a one-year term. Board members from the four other towns are elected at their respective March town meetings.

Murphy said his district has been working with neighboring SAD 43 and SAD 21 to try to reduce administrative costs for at least a couple of years.

He said an informational meeting on the steps school districts must take next in the consolidation process has been set for June 27 at Mountain Valley High School in Rumford.