AUBURN -After being scolded by L-A Arts supporters and a Lewiston School Committee member for wiping out funding to the arts program without any notification, the Auburn School Committee swiftly voted Wednesday to restore the money.

The committee also passed the $33.72 million budget which cut a high school physical education teacher, Eric Palesky, and a number of vacant positions.

The budget eliminated a high school math teacher, a science teacher, a secretary and reading specialist teacher, which were all vacant. The budget also added an English as a Learning Language at the Park Avenue School, creates an assistant director of the Office of Learning and Teaching, and expands prekindergarten pilot programs to two schools.

The approved budget stayed within a spending cap that allowed a 3.3 percent spending growth, as requested by Mayor John Jenkins and the Auburn City Council. The budget now goes to the council.

Before that vote was taken, several L-A Arts supporters said they were surprised to read in the newspaper that $18,000 in funding allowing artists to work with students and teachers was being axed.

L-A Arts Executive Director Andrew Harris said the program has a long-standing tradition of working in schools in both Lewiston and Auburn, that the $18,000 Auburn spends is a good buy. The program provides professional support for teachers and bolsters a number of arts programs for students. To dismantle a program that provides such benefits for two decades doesn’t make sense, Andrews said, who asked committee members reconsider.

L-A Arts past chairman and board member Jon Oxman agreed, saying it was “kind of sad to be here. I never guessed this appearance would be necessary.” As a taxpayer and arts supporter, he said he found it ironic that committee members just approved $37,000 for surveillance cameras for the Auburn Middle School, but cut funding for the arts.

“I’m not chiding you, but I’m very disappointed by the process” in that there was no prior discussion or warning, he said. “You should do better. It should be funded.”

Dennis Grafflin, a Lewiston School Committee member and officer of the L-A Arts, said the “Arts in Education” program of L-A Arts has operated in both school systems for two decades.

He expressed “dismay that, at a time when cooperation between the two cities is being increasingly discussed … the Auburn School Committee seems to be on the verge of choosing to destroy” an effective partnership with the Lewiston School Department for a very modest saving.

“Such a cut seems to me to cast doubt on how much faith the Lewiston School Department should place in any understanding that the Auburn School Department enters into,” Grafflin said.

Several school committee responded by saying they do support arts in schools, but they had to make difficult budget choices.

Member Bonnie Hayes said it was her idea to cut the L-A Arts, but she did it because she was trying to consider “people’s lives and their families,” or avoid people losing their jobs. “If this has marred in any way” partnerships with Lewiston, “then shame on the Lewiston School Department,” Hayes said.

Committee member Susan Gaylord said she, too, values the arts, and voted for the cut only because they were forced to make difficult decisions with the 3.3 percent spending growth limit.

Gaylord said the committee should continue to tell the council how much it values education and objects to the spending cap. Her Ward 4 constituents tell her, “They’re willing to pay a bit more for education in Auburn.” The situation “is very frustrating,” Gaylord said.

After hearing business manager Jude Cyr report there was more money than needed in a salary account, the committee voted 6-1 to restore arts funding by moving $18,000 from that account.

In other action, members approved a $37,000 camera surveillance system at the Auburn Middle School. The money would come from last year’s capital improvements account.

The cameras, eight on the second floor, six on the first, and nine on the exterior, “would be a powerful system” and built this summer, Cyr said.