PERU – Selectmen on Monday discussed school funding legislation that will come up for a vote later this week in Augusta.

Board members said they think the governor and legislators had manipulated budget numbers to dilute a voter initiative passed last year calling for the state to fund 55 percent of education costs.

Chairman Andy St. Pierre, who received a copy of the legislation, expressed his frustration with the issue.

“These people are dancing around (school funding reform) to avoid making tough decisions,” he said.

Jim Pulsifer said he believed that passing the legislation would be tantamount to subverting the will of the people.

The board agreed to contact state Reps. Bruce Bryant and Randy Holtham to express their disapproval of the bill.

Also on Monday, the board was presented with correspondence from the Oxford County Sheriff’s Department regarding proposed adjustments to the way county funding is used to provide police coverage. The plan calls for the reduction of funding for the eight Oxford County towns that have their own police departments and encourage them to disband those departments in favor of county patrolling.

The board voted to send a letter in support of the current funding system because of concerns that, under the proposed plan, the Sheriff’s Department would be stretched too thin by towns expecting a very high level of coverage.

Raises for the roads department employees came up for discussion Monday night. After some lengthy discussion, the board approved an increase of 45 cents per hour for the road commissioner and 25 cents per hour for the department’s only other full-time employee. Those numbers are based roughly on current federal government figures for the cost-of-living increase.