AUBURN — By the end of Thursday, voters took out almost ten times as many absentee ballots as were cast in the school budget election of 2012.

Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday, June 11, at Auburn Hall, the only polling place for the school referendum.

Thursday was the last day residents could request absentee ballots for the June 11 school budget referendum. By the end of the day, the city had issued 541 absentee ballots, City Clerk Susan Clements-Daillaire said.

Only 55 absentee ballots were taken out last year for the school budget referendum. Early returns on election night showed that 693 people voted, passing the school budget by 5 votes, 349-344.

Auburn has 15,970 registered voters, and last year’s turnout was less than 5 percent, Clements-Daillaire said.

Clements-Daillaire said she was surprised by the heightened interest. “I expected better than last year, but I did not expect to issue this many. I planned for 200 absentee ballots and thought that was on the high side.”

Compared to last year, there’s a lot more talk and information on the school budget referendum, she said. “People are very interested.”

The proposed budget sets school spending for 2013-14 at $38.4 million, a 6.9 percent increase compared to the current budget. The new budget begins July 1.

Combined with a $762,511 increase in state funding to the schools, the budget would increase property taxes devoted to education by $1.7 million, an 11 percent increase, from $15.4 million to $17.1 million.