LISBON — Voters will decide June 11 whether to consolidate the town’s two Town Council districts into one.

The biggest impact: Councilors would become at-large members rather than being elected to represent either district.

Consolidation of the town into a single district has already occurred in other important areas, and the June referendum would make the consolidation complete.

The town’s polling place is now a single location, rather than two, and the District 56 legislative seat represents the entire town. Elementary schools and libraries have also been consolidated.

Consolidation of the council seats would make the Town Council similar to the School Committee and Water Commission, whose members are elected at-large.

“All voters would vote for all candidates, and councilors could live anywhere within the town borders,” Twila Lycette, Lisbon’s town clerk, said in a May 8 interview.

The move could make it easier to fill seats on the Town Council, according to Lycette. A vacancy now exists on the council in District 2, but no one has come forward to fill it, even at a critical time for the council as it determines the coming year’s budget.

The most recent budget talks have focused on the Lisbon School Department. The school budget is set to increase by 2.6 percent, or $425,988, over this year, mainly because of regular increases in salaries and benefits. The state contribution increased 2.2 percent from the current year, but the amount raised locally will go up by 5.5 percent.

The school budget will total more than $60 million and is a combination of state and local contributions, adult education and revenues.

Salaries and benefits make up more than 70 percent of the school budget.

“It’s just we have that many employees and salaries and percentages on those salaries,” school Superintendent Richard Green said in his May 7 presentation to the Town Council.

The School Department has determined the budget would increase by about $425,000 without making any changes to other parts of the budget.

“I think it’s important for everybody to understand, especially if you look at the numbers, that there’s certain dollar figures that you can’t really control,” Councilor Fern Larochelle said at the May 7 meeting.

“Uncontrollable costs every year that boils down to negotiations as far as union contracts,” he said. “Basically, there wasn’t much added to it.”

The Town Council is scheduled will adopt the school budget May 14. The municipal budget is still in the works, with the council to take a closer look on May 21.

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