POLAND – At least four candidates will be running for two open selectmen’s seats Friday.

Wendy Sanborn will be running for re-election; Reginald “Bud” Jordan will not.

The other three candidates are Lester Stevens, former Selectman Joseph Cimino and Buffy Morrissette, chairwoman of the comprehensive planning committee.

Also on the ballot are Stephen Carr, who will be running unopposed for School Committee, and Sylvia Conley, Susan Ellis and Nathaniel LaClaire who are vying for two seats on the A.B. Ricker Memorial Library trustees board.

Ten people will be running for positions on the charter commission. They include Norman Beauparlant, Anthony Christakis, William Eldridge, Nancy Frasier, Paul Harrison Jr., Patricia Nash, James Porter, Ernest Ray, Bruce Uldall and William Willett.

However, residents will vote during Saturday’s annual town meeting on whether to have a town charter, so commission membership is not guaranteed.

Saturday’s town meeting will begin at 9 a.m. in the Poland Regional High School Auditorium.

One article on Saturday’s warrant proposes a change to the town ordinance that would allow elected officials to be pulled from their seats if they conduct themselves inappropriately.

The town is expected to exceed a state funding formula. The formula, called Essential Programs and Services, sets limits for how much schools should be spending in certain areas.

Passed by the Legislature in early 2005, lawmakers hailed L.D. 1 as the key to lowering local property taxes because the state would pay a higher percentage of school costs. L.D. 1 put spending caps at the state, county and municipal level, and it required separate votes by elected officials, and in some cases townspeople, if they wanted to exceed the caps.

According to Rosemary Roy, assistant town manager, the town is projected to exceed the formula by $137,000, and the school system is expected to exceed it by $1.6 million. Although the school system’s budget did not increase from last year, this will be the second year in a row that it has exceeded the L.D. 1 formula.

If all articles on the town warrant are supported, then the town tax rate is projected to rise by 26 cents from $21.30 to $21.56.

“We really cut our costs this year,” Roy said. “They did it in many, many different ways.”

One example is the town’s new insurance contract, which requires town employees to pay 5 percent of the cost. Employees used to pay nothing.

The tax rate could rise, however, if residents support line items such as the proposed purchase of a $22,000 police cruiser, and filling an additional, $40,000-a-year fire department position.

The tax rate will also see additional adjustments due to an accounting error, discovered in February 2006, by an audit of the town’s books that left the town with a $2.7 million budget shortfall.

According to Bruce Nadeau, an auditor who performed Poland’s latest audit, the mistake likely went back several years and was due to a tax increment financing deal’s complexity.

Last month, a special selectmen’s meeting to discuss problems unveiled during a state audit of the town’s finances was postponed until Tuesday, April 17.

James George, owner of a public accounting firm in Boston, was hired by the state to look over Poland’s auditing records. The move was the result of a little-used law that allows state involvement in town auditing when a critical mass of residents asks for it. More than 500 residents signed a petition asking for the review.

The James George review should be completed by the end of April, more than a month after its original deadline.

“The re-audit took a lot more time than expected,” said state Auditor Neria Douglass. “I believe that the citizens of Poland benefit more from having a thorough examination of town finances than from meeting a deadline.”

Go and do

WHAT: Poland election

WHEN: 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday, April 6

WHERE: Town Hall

WHAT: Town meeting

WHEN: 9 a.m. Saturday

WHERE: Poland Regional High School