SABATTUS – Selectmen will hold a special meeting at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 24, to decide how much notice an upcoming school budget meeting needs.

The town charter says meetings need to be posted, or made public, 15 days in advance. The state regulation on school budget town meetings says seven days.

“There’s controversy when the town meeting warrant is supposed to be posted,” said Selectman Guy Desjardins. “The town manager said we need to take a look at this. This is a special meeting.”

The selectmen will decide what date the town meeting explaining the budget is held, and what date the referendum will be held.

Because the school budget was rejected June 10, the budget has to again be explained in a town meeting, and decided again by voters in a referendum.

On June 10, 264 voted for the budget, 261 against.

But 28 who voted no did so because they wanted more spent on schools. If they voted for the budget it would have passed. The remaining 236 voted no because they wanted lower spending.

Meanwhile, the Sabattus School Committee boosted the school budget by $20,000 to cover higher heating oil costs, Union 44 Business Manager Chris Trenholm said.

The proposed $6.32 million budget is now 2.4 percent higher. However costs to property taxpayers will go down by a total of $296,000, Trenholm said. That’s because Sabattus received more money for education from the state, and revenue left over from the last budget was saved to help lower costs in the next budget. Those savings will provide relief to taxpayers, Trenholm said.

– Bonnie Washuk