MINOT — Selectmen Monday approved paying a portion of the town’s July assessment bill it received from RSU 16.

By approving a check for $132,507.41 — the amount the town has been billed monthly for the past year — the board sent the message that it disagreed with the RSU’s decision to bill its member towns based on the proposed $17,872,765 budget that voters in Mechanic Falls, Minot and Poland rejected in a validating referendum vote held on June 21.

“It’s undemocratic for us to be asked to pay for a bill based on a budget the voters said ‘no’ to,” Selectman Dean Campbell said.

Selectmen argued that when people voted down the $17.8 million proposed budget, school officials should have continued operating on the last budget that won full and final approval — the $17.1 million budget for the year that ended June 30.

Minot’s school assessment bill for this July was $139,197 — an increase of about $6,690 over what it was a year ago.

A week ago Poland selectmen questioned whether they should sign this year’s tax commitment if that action meant they were asking property taxpayers to pay for a school budget they had rejected in the referendum vote.

In response to that discussion RSU 16 officials have called for a meeting the week of July 25 to see if all parties can sit down and come up with a school budget that everyone can live with.

In a related matter, Town Administrator Arlan Saunders told selectmen he had received an email from Rosemary Roy, Poland’s administrative assistant, that asked whether they would like to hold a preliminary meeting the week of July 18 with Poland selectmen and Mechanic Falls council members to discuss shared concerns.

Campbell wondered what such a meeting would accomplish, given that there would be nothing new sitting in front of the three boards, but the board directed Saunders to continue discussions on a preliminary meeting.

In other business, selectmen signed a warrant that will put 36 $2,000 checks in the mail — rebates to property owners who paid into the town’s development impact fee program. There are a total of slightly more than 100 property owners who are due the rebates. Saunders said he is close to completing the paperwork that will release checks to another 34 property owners.

Saunders also told selectmen that, weather permitting, R.C. and Sons will be laying pavement the length of Shaw Hill Road and on Center Minot Road from Jackson Hill Road to the Center Minot Grange this Tuesday.

He also reminded selectmen that the Appeals Board will meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday, at the town office, to reconsider its decision to allow a building permit be issued to developer Chuck Starbird for his property off the end of the town accepted portion of York Road.