AUBURN — School starts Aug. 28, whether or not voters approve a new budget Tuesday.

“We are planning for it to pass,” Superintendent Katy Grondin said. “It’s what we have to do. We’ve gone line by line to find things to reduce while still maintaining the quality of education for all students. Now, we need the budget to pass.”

Voters will go to the polls for the third time this summer, weighing in on the School Department’s proposed $37.13 million budget on Aug. 20. The proposed budget amounts to $15.6 million in property taxes for the schools, a slight decrease compared to the previous year.

Voters have already turned down two previous versions of the same budget: the first would have increased overall spending 6.9 percent, the second 4.9 percent.

“We have reduced the budget by $1.2 million since the original,” she said. “Part of it was from looking at doing different things with different positions. Then, we went through our curriculum budget to make sure certain books wouldn’t be purchased. Can we live without something for another year? If yes, we are going reduce it.”

Grondin said there is still a $1.28 million spending increase in this budget, but it’s money that’s out of the School Department’s hands. The state shifted $511,103 in retirement program costs to the city and required the department set aside $309,845 for private purpose special education programs. The department’s health insurance costs went up $456,044 as well.

Those cost increases are mostly offset by $1.27 million in new state aid, Grondin said.

“In essence, it covers those costs,” she said. “But it means that we’re asking for the same amount of property taxes we received last year.”

Auburn Hall is once again the sole polling place for Tuesday’s vote. Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the Community Room, on the building’s second floor.

Grondin said she’s hopeful this budget will pass.

She and other school officials have heard resident concerns about high taxes, she said.

“I think the school budget vote was later than normal, and that gave it time to mix in with other city politics,” Grondin said. “It became involved in other city issues as a whole, and people felt it was their only place to have a voice.”

She also thinks plans to replace Edward Little High School brought in voters. School officials have agreed to wait until state funding becomes available address that building issue.

“This budget has nothing to do with a new high school,” Grondin said. “There is no money in there at all, but because they were upset about that, they voted no.”

Ron Potvin, a candidate for the School Committee who has opposed both previous budgets, said this one meets with his approval.

“We’ve done the job now,” Potvin said. “Voting against it now doesn’t help. All it would do is bottom out the total spending in the schools, and that’s money we get from elsewhere. It wouldn’t help reduce the tax rate at this point.”

But Potvin said there is still an undercurrent in Auburn that want it to fail.

“There are people that are upset about the total budget, and the schools are getting the brunt of it,” Potvin said.

The new fiscal year 2013-14 budget calls for $73.7 million in total spending for the city and the schools and an estimated $40.8 million in property taxes.

All told, the new budget looks to set the city’s tax rate at $20.33 per $1,000 of value. That translates into a $3,049 tax bill for a $150,000 home — an increase of $111 compared to 2012-13 fiscal year.

“I think the city has done as well as it can at this point — and that includes the schools,” Potvin said. “There are some who want a decrease, but they’re a smaller and smaller group at this point. We are at zero now, and there’s not much point in trying to go lower.”

Grondin said she’s also heard that some will vote no Tuesday because they feel the budget is too low.

“That’s not the way we’re reading a ‘no’ vote now,” she said. “We have to assume that a no means they want spending lower. I’m telling people if they want the budget higher, they should work to support that next spring. But now, they need to support the budget as it is.”

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