MINOT – The School Committee and Board of Selectmen on Monday night agreed to co-host a public hearing on the Palesky tax cap’s potential ramifications on municipal and educational services.

It is set for 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 18, at in the Minot Consolidated School gymnasium.

The two panels agreed that School Committee Chairman Colleen Quint should prepare a mailing for every household on the potential revenue losses and associated service cuts if the proposed 1 percent tax-cap referendum passes in November.

Taking into account the proposed tax cap’s complexities and uncertainties, board members agreed that a conservative budget estimate for next March would be that the town would take in $500,000 to $600,000 less than this year.

Town Administrator Gregory Gill and school officials Margaret Pitts and Stacie Everett were asked to provide Quint with an idea of what sorts of choices would have to be made.

School Superintendent Nina Schlikin noted that people need more than just dollar figures. “People need to hear a level of specificity. Dollar figures don’t do it. They don’t hit you in the gut,” Schlikin said.

Pitts, noting that the school budget is largely the cost of staff, said the Minot Consolidated School was looking to reduce staff by something like three teachers and three and a half education technicians.

“And it will probably have to be worse than that, given it appears we won’t be able to cut the transportation as deeply as I figured,” she said.

One of the possible cost-saving items on the table was the elimination of transportation for students attending Poland Regional High School.

School Committee member Steve Holbrook questioned whether this was possible. He recalled that one provision in the law for constructing Poland

Regional High School specifies that Minot transport its students.

Officials also discussed the town side of the budget.

Selectman Eda Tripp said, “If you cut 39 percent – the average being considered for town accounts – from the fire and rescue department’s $50,000 budget, you probably have cut so deeply that you might be forced to abandon the services all together.”

Gill noted that abandonment of certain services, turning the services over to the state, is a viable option.

“If for a service you have to offer, but you don’t have the dollars to do them, and you can’t borrow the money, and now you can’t raise the money, then you don’t have much of a choice. You have to let the state take over and you lose local control,” said Gill.

Chairman of the Board of Selectmen Dean Campbell said his goal was to make sure that townspeople clearly understand what their vote means for themselves and for their town.

“If folk are informed and they vote this through then, as town officials, it’s our job to abide by their decision and work it through,” Campbell said.