POLAND — Selectmen and new Town Manager Rosemary Kulow learned Tuesday that the $4.3 million utility project at routes 122 and 26 is pretty much on schedule and is under budget.

Rob Williamson, project manager supplied by Wright-Pierce Engineering, told the board he estimated the project, which will bring water and sewer service to the vicinity of the intersection, be about $266,000 less than expected.

Williamson noted the savings were primarily due to less disturbance of the state highway and less ledge than anticipated.

He asked whether the board would like to extend the project, pushing the sewer line another 750 feet north on Route 26 toward the Poland Spring Inn complex and installing a water crossing that could eventually allow water to be delivered to the Birchwood Lane neighborhood.

Selectmen voted unanimously to have Wright-Pierce negotiate with K & K Construction to do the extra work.

Williamson estimated that K & K would probably finish all the work required of the contract, less the extra work, this construction season and would therefore be back in the spring for at least two weeks for bits of cleanup and to complete the added work.

He also noted that the Auburn Water and Sewer Department’s project installing a pump station along Route 122 had been delayed somewhat at the start but appeared it would meet its mid-December target for completion.

Williamson estimated the added work being asked of K & K Construction would cost about $100,000, leaving the entire project a comfortable cushion.

“I commend you, the way the work on this project has gone is fantastic,” Selectman Larry Moreau said.

In other business, Selectman Steve Robinson reported that the RSU 16 School Committee voted Monday night to present voters with a $17.8 million budget, the amount rejected by voters in September, at the district budget meeting later this month. However, he noted that he had since learned that the School Committee intended to meet again in a week to revisit the matter.

“I certainly hope so. It would be an utter failure of the process if they come back with the same dollar figure,” Robinson said.

Selectmen also awarded a contract to remove some contaminated wood, currently stored at the transfer station, to Marshall Grinding, and agreed to hold a workshop with the town’s Fire-Rescue Building Committee prior to the board’s Oct. 18 meeting.