Wiscasset Superintendent of Schools Heather Wilmot unveiled a proposed $9.1 million budget March 24, up eight percent from this year’s $8.4 million. School committee members still need to approve the offer April 28 to go on to voters’ first decisions on it in May; however, members agreed Thursday night they see nothing they want to change because the impact would be so little.

“It seems like there’s not a lot to talk about. You’d get rid of a lot, to save a little,” Chairman Steve Smith said.

The budget would grow the athletic director and Wiscasset Middle High School assistant principal slots from quarter to half-time slots, fund playground work and the school resource officer, and make a part-time alternative education teacher full-time; dropping those plans would lower the eight-percent hike to six percent, officials said.

Members said they were not comfortable with the size of the increase, but that it is necessary, and that they do not plan to make those cuts to the budget offer.

The bulk of the hike is due to projected increases in pay and health insurance, officials said. Based on ongoing contract talks, Wilmot projected pay to rise $292,067 and insurance, $112,448.

Smith said he would have liked to put in new funding for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), but the town can’t afford it this year. “I think eight percent is as high as we can go.”

Member Eugene Stover said the only thing helping him be comfortable proposing the hike is the fact it would have been worse had the town not gone from three schools to two this year.

Asked later if it was hard proposing a budget with a hike that size, Wilmot said the hard part was having to base the proposal in part on projections including estimated state aid that could still change. The various steps administrators took in preparing the budget, and all the priorities based on a public survey she conducted ahead of the budget work, were helpful, she said.

The school resource officer’s position drew some discussion over how the hours are distributed. Wilmot said she would like to work with the police department to have more of the officer’s time spent at Wiscasset Elementary School than happens currently, to help address issues for students at a younger age.

“I think it’s a better approach,” Wilmot said. “I want to be preventative as opposed to being reactive,”

“I agree,” committee member Chelsea Haggett said. No one opposed the idea.

The municipal budget funded the resource officer’s first two years; the school department had agreed to take over funding this year, Smith noted.

The panel agreed to propose starting a capital reserve account with $10,782 of the $310,782 that went unspent in the department’s opening year.

Wilmot has built $20,125 for playground work into the budget offer. Fencing, bark mulch as a surface, swings, a chime panel, and balance and other equipment are eyed.

Also Thursday, Wilmot shared the latest state aid projection of $1,706,044, up $280,055 from this year. Wilmot continued to stress that the numbers can still change, as late as this summer.

Wiscasset’s revenue from tuition is still projected to fall by $250,000, from this year’s $1.2 million to $950,000, according to a department handout at the workshop in the Wiscasset Middle High library.

Wilmot will meet with Wiscasset’s budget committee April 14 at the town office. The meeting starts at 6 p.m., Chairman Cliff Hendricks said.

On April 28, in the middle high school library, the school committee will give the proposal another review in a 5 p.m. workshop, then consider adopting it at 6 p.m.

The town meeting-style, school budget meeting is tentatively set for 6 p.m. May 11 in the middle high school gym, Wilmot said. The budget that comes out of that meeting faces a final vote at the polls later this spring.