MONMOUTH – Voters approved the School Committee’s proposed $7.5 million budget in an emotional three-hour meeting Thursday at Monmouth Academy.

Now, the town will hold a referendum in its fourth attempt to pass a budget for the 2009 fiscal year.

Monmouth held its first referendum June 30, when the proposed budget was $7.62 million, a 6.9 percent increase over the previous year. The overall impact of that budget on property taxes would have been an increase of 2.7 percent. That referendum failed.

Slightly lower budgets failed to pass July 14 and 23.

The trouble stems in part from a new state law regulating school funding, which requires that a proposed budget be approved by voters in a town meeting and then passed in a local referendum. The fact that the new law requires a two-step process means that fewer people turn out for the town meeting to learn about the budget, which can contribute to a lack of understanding and support, according to retired Monmouth math teacher David Heckman.

This time around, Monmouth school officials cut the budget to eliminate a property tax increase.

“The voters kept telling us they wanted that number,” said Mike Rogers, chairman of the Monmouth School Committee.

But to “come back with zero increase to the taxpayers,” he said, required cutting $121,033.

“We’ve cut one special ed tech and (made) some other instructional cuts, we deferred a little maintenance,” Rogers explained. “It’s tight, extremely tight.”

But he also believes this was an important step for the unity of the town. “There were a lot of emotional and compassionate pleas and opinions from people” at the meeting, he said. “The town’s been divided. This is what we need to move on.”

The budget referendum will be held from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Aug. 26 at Cumstom Hall.