SABATTUS – Voters at Thursday’s special town meeting advanced the School Committee’s third proposed budget with little opposition.

A referendum to confirm the budget will be held Aug. 19, though absentee ballots are already available.

Townspeople on Thursday voted on 16 articles comprising various aspects of the committee’s $5,994,595 budget.

All articles passed, including the appropriation of $230,150 in additional local funds, the only article to be voted on via written ballot. The funding passed by a 37-20 margin.

The $230,150 exceeds the state’s Essential Programs and Services allocation model for local funding by $135,975. The school department cited “a local choice to have lower student-teacher ratios” to spend more on co-curricular and extracurricular activities, instruction-related technology, and special education expenses than allowed in the model, as well as higher operating and maintenance expenses as reasons for exceeding the $135,975 recommended in the state’s model.

Approximately 50 people attended the meeting. While most favored the budget, several opposed every article.

Walter Wood said, “When I was in school,” he said, “we had two classes in each room, and a lot of us have done OK in our lives.”

However, based on interviews, most opponents believed the proposed budget was too low. That was the opinion held by committee members Gary Blais and Robert Gayton Jr., chairman.

Gayton explained that the committee’s most recent proposal is the same amount as the previous year, while “teachers’ salaries and the price of fuel have gone up.”

The committee had already cut $315,000 from the first budget, Gayton said. That was two budget proposals ago. Because of the state’s new school funding law, a proposed budget must be approved by voters in a town meeting and then passed in local referendum.

Sabattus has yet to pass a proposed budget in referendum this year.

“We’re not done yet,” said Blais, alluding to the upcoming third referendum.