WALES — Voters will get a third shot Wednesday at approving a $21.8 million budget for Regional School Unit 4 covering Sabattus, Litchfield and Wales.

A public budget meeting at 6:30 p.m. in the Oak Hill High School gymnasium will consider a revised spending plan the district’s board of directors reduced after losing a second budget referendum in August.

The new budget, which increases spending by 2.2% over the past academic year, is nearly $700,000 less than the initial proposal that voters rejected in June. They voted down a second budget two months later, apparently unhappy that it hit taxpayers too hard.

If voters at this week’s budget meeting back the new proposal, it will go before voters Oct. 3 in each of the district’s towns.

The second budget plan lost badly in each town. Whether the third vote will prove more supportive is uncertain given the vehement opposition of some residents to any spending hikes for public education.

The latest version of the proposed budget includes no new positions and $340,000 in savings from erasing six jobs that existed last year. All told, the plan calls for spending about $290,000 less on instruction than directors hoped for in their first budget proposal for this school year.

For details of the proposed spending plan, go to rsu4.org.

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