PARIS – Town clerks from each of SAD 17’s eight member towns will be at the Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School on Thursday as voters gather to approve a $35.8 million school budget.

“We are in a very different budget process this year,” Superintendent Mark Eastman told SAD 17 directors at their meeting Monday night. “We’re afraid because it’s new, a lot of people won’t know about it.”

The meeting, which begins at 7 p.m. in the Forum, is the first of a two-part voting process mandated by the state to pass the district budget. Eastman said that Thursday’s meeting is the only opportunity to raise or lower budget articles.

The town meeting results will be ratified on June 10 when voters in each town will be asked at their individual town polling places to approve the district budget that was adopted at the June 5 budget meeting. That will be a simple yes or no answer.

Voters at the budget meeting will act on the 13-article budget warrant in a town-meeting style format. The first six articles will authorize specific expenditures, such as instructional support funding in the amount of $19.8 million and $2.4 million for transportation.

Articles seven through nine will raise the funds for the proposed school budget by municipality. A total of $13.7 million must be raised by the eight towns according to their individual assessments, in order to receive a $33.8 million state subsidy.

Other articles include raising and appropriating $363,907 for the annual payment on debt service previously approved by district voters, the $3.7 million Maine Vocational Region 11 operating budget for fiscal 2009 and $536,512 for adult education.

Voters will also be asked to approve in a written ballot the sum of $999,863, which exceeds the state’s Essential Programs and Services allocation model by $302,585, as required to fund the budget recommended by directors. That request is being made because of increased fuel costs.