POLAND — Residents of Mechanic Falls, Minot and Poland will meet this Wednesday to decide the fate of the RSU 16 School Committee’s latest proposed school budget.

The town meeting-style district budget meeting is scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 7 at the Poland Regional High School’s Robert Wall auditorium.

This will mark district voters’ third attempt to establish a budget for the school year that is now under way.

In May and again in June, district budget meetings approved budgets only to see them rejected when they went to validation votes in referendum-style balloting.

The $17,847,765 budget that will be presented is a compromise between what the School Committee first brought forward in May and the demands of its critics, who have called for a budget that would not raise local property taxes a penny.

The budget that voters rejected in May stood at $18,134,783. School officials estimated that the budget would have increased taxes on a property valued at $100,000 in Mechanic Falls by $45.43 a year, while a similar house in Minot would have seen its taxes go up by $82.79 and a $100,000 house in Poland would have had its taxes go up by $46.10.

The RSU 16 School Committee came back in June with a budget that was $260,000 lower.

This lowered the property tax impact on model property valued at $100,000 in Mechanic Falls to an estimated $13.74 in Mechanic Falls, $49.66 in Minot and $20.75 in Poland.

In August the School Committee met with town officials and invited members of the towns’ budget committees to review the budget.

It was estimated that another $250,000 would have to be cut from the budget in order to completely eliminate any call for an increase in local property taxes.

School officials feared that a cut of that magnitude would cause harm to the educational program and came up with a compromise that reduced what local property taxpayers would be asked to come up with by $125,000.

This was accomplished by recommending $25,000 be cut from the transportation line and taking an additional $100,000 from the district’s fund balance.

The resulting budget, according to school officials’ preliminary estimates, would have the following impact on local property taxes: Taxes on a property valued at $100,000 in Mechanic Falls would actually decrease by 34 cents, while similar properties in Minot and Poland would see their taxes increase by $34.94 and $9.49, respectively.

The Poland Budget Committee voted to recommend approval of the school budget as presented.

Members of the Minot Budget Committee were in general agreement with the budget’s bottom line; however, Emily Tuttle cast dissenting votes on the three warrant articles that provided funds for school administration.

“I would rather see the money going toward restoring services and programs for students than for administration salary increases,” Tuttle said.

The Mechanic Falls Budget Committee has not met to make formal recommendations. Ollie Emery said that while several committee members support the latest budget as presented, he was concerned that increases built into this year’s budget “raises the bar” and will make next year’s budget all the more difficult to handle.

The budget that townspeople approve on Wednesday will be sent to a budget validation vote on Tuesday, Sept. 13, for final action.