AUGUSTA — A public hearing on the proposed $26.8 million school budget is planned tonight.

The budget is $106,000 less than the current budget. However, because of decreased revenues, it would require a property tax increase of about $400,000, or about 2 percent.

Cuts made to the budget since it was first proposed include a boiler at Capital Area Technical Center, freshmen sports at Cony High School, concurrent elementary school bus pickups, funding to provide security at the no-longer-used Hodgkins Middle School, a $45,000 reduction in the legal budget, a half-time gifted and talented teaching position, a half-time art teaching position, a courier’s position, the reduction from multiple teams to just one team per sport at the middle school level (replacing a proposal to eliminate middle school sports) and a reduction, from full-time to half-time, of an English as a second language teaching position.

The hearing is at an Augusta Board of Education meeting at 7 tonight in the cafeteria at Capital Area Technical Center. The budget is expected to go to a board vote March 28.