DIXFIELD — Voters passed a $13.2 million budget Wednesday night to finance the first fiscal year for Regional School Unit 56.

Residents of Canton, Carthage, Dixfield and Peru also approved $2.42 million in additional local funds by a vote of 95-59.

Interim Superintendent Brenda Gammon estimated the budget will increase property taxes an average of 24 percent. For a home assessed at  $100,000, that would mean an increase of $340 in Canton, $111 in Carthage, $316 in Dixfield and $350 in Peru.

When the four towns voted last November to leave RSU 10 in Rumford, they cited lowering costs and more local control.

Before the vote Wednesday night at Dirigo High School, Gammon explained to the 172 voters why the budget for 2017-18 was more than originally predicted last year.

“We have withdrawal and startup costs; $165,000 was voted by the town as startup funds but it wasn’t raised by the towns at the time they agreed to it,” she said. “$45,000 has to go to RSU 10 for relocating their central office, and then we owe RSU 10 $800,000 for the summer salaries, so right here there’s a million dollars.”

Gammon also said the new district had hoped to bring educators’ and staff members’ salaries, which are spread out throughout the year, into the present year’s budget, “but we realized we can’t afford this $800,000 plus another $800,000.”

The article regarding facilities maintenance brought discussion about the Central Office building in Dixfield, which the RSU 56 board voted in May to close. It has served as RSU 10’s headquarters.

“Unfortunately every time we turn around it seems there’s an additional expense with closing the building,” school board member Barry Prescott of Dixfield said. “We found out within the last couple of days that originally we were told that we could insure the building for less than its value in case it burned or had some other catastrophe. We’ve been told by the insurance company that they will not insure it for less. they want to insure it for the entire amount, which is $10,423.60.

“So that’s an expense we didn’t plan on,” he said. “We planned on it being less than that. There’s also $19,000 in fuel for that building that’s been pre-bought, an obligation has been made to buy that fuel,” he said.

Kathy Walker of Canton made a motion to keep the building open, which would have meant an increase of $86,500 to the $1.38 million budget article, but voters did not approve the amendment.

In formulating its first budget to begin the fiscal year July 1, the board made major cuts, including to academic and sports programs. Major ones were:

Educators’ summer salaries for the year 2018, $785,951; alternative education program at Dirigo High School, $50,000? a Special Education position at Dirigo Elementary School, $50,000? teacher leaders at the high, middle and elementary schools, $26,384? no expanded pre­-kindergarten at Dirigo Elementary School, $64,000? all junior varsity sports at Dirigo Middle and High Schools, $17,090.

Also, the guidance program at the middle school was cut $68,280. The program was initially for pre-kindergarten to grade five, with a separate program for grades six to eight. It will be recreated as a kindergarten through grade eight program.

A music teacher position at Dirigo High School was cut for $25,000; and a middle school teacher position was cut for $25,000. Two separate music programs were consolidated into one for kindergarten through grade eight.

A final validation vote on the budget will be held at polling stations in all four towns  Tuesday, June 13.

The school board will meet at 6:30 p.m June 13 at Dirigo High School.

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Approved budget expenditures

Regular instruction $3,856,300

Special Education $2,189,154

Career and Technical Education $771,094

Other instruction $429,785

Student and staff support $1,230,468

System Administration $628,957

School Administration $549,610

Transportation and buses $920,486

Facilities maintenance $1,378,232

Debt service and other commitments $1,180,370

All other expenditures $80,938