BUCKFIELD – Approximately 60 voters from Buckfield, Hartford and Sumner turned out Wednesday night to pass a $6.9 million SAD 39 budget.

The amount, which is $234,551.41 more than this year, is under what the Taxpayer Bill of Rights would have allowed.

SAD 39 Chairwoman Colleen Bullecks pointed out that though TABOR failed in a statewide referendum last November, it passed in the three SAD 39 towns.

Town Manager Glen Holmes assisted the board in obtaining information from the Maine Municipal Association on its best estimate as to what the maximum rate of increase would have been for SAD 39 under TABOR. The estimate would have allowed the budget to increase at 4.58 percent, or $301,590.

The largest increase in the budget for 2007/2008 is for therapy costs and out-of-district placement for special education students. The cost increased $114,182.64 to $1,162,265.11.

The second largest increase was in the K-8 instruction with the addition of a middle school teacher, first grade teacher and all-day kindergarten and prekindergarten. This item in the budget increased $96,641.68 to $1,567,392.13 and includes wages and benefits.

The largest reductions in the budget were $34,296.24 for operation and maintenance and $17,586.11 for cutting the librarian’s time by two days a week.

The library reduction caused some discussion. Superintendent Rick Colpitts said there will be an education technician to run the libraries at Buckfield and Sumner schools when the librarian is not there, but there will be 3.5 percent less service at the elementary school.

Some people believed administrative costs should have been cut instead of the library. The administrative costs have resulted because Colpitts will be part time and his clerical staff will take over some of his duties. These duties include approving purchase orders within the budgeted amount, approving absences, supervising transportation, handling teacher negotiations and policies.

SAD 39 will pay all of Colpitts salary, and SAD 17 will reimburse half of it because he will work half the time as its assistant superintendent.

There was an amendment to article 7 to reduce the allowed local funds by $150,000. This was defeated 42-27.

Article seven, which was to appropriate $773,620.93 in additional local funds and exceeds the state’s Essential Programs and Services allocation model by $571,819.67, passed 42-26.