SKOWHEGAN — A few dozen voters from Skowhegan-area towns quickly gave a $51.44 million school budget its first approval Wednesday.

About 50 voters, including 15 of the 23 members of the Maine School Administrative District 54 board of directors, approved the school district’s 2025-26 budget in 18 minutes with no discussion or questions during the annual budget meeting.

The total budget approved Wednesday, which comes with an overall property tax increase across MSAD 54’s six towns of just over 2%, now goes to voters again for final approval in the June 10 budget validation referendum.

The district serves students in Canaan, Cornville, Mercer, Norridgewock, Skowhegan and Smithfield.

The 2025-26 spending plan of $51,440,429 approved Wednesday marks an increase over the current year of about $2,554,221, or 5.22%, budget figures show.

Subtracting the costs of building the new consolidated Margaret Chase Smith Community School and career and technical education, the spending increase is about $1.03 million, or 2.12%, over the current year.

The $75 million school construction project is funded 100% by the state, Congressionally Directed Spending and local fundraising efforts; career and technical education is also 100% state-funded.

The proposed budget factors in the use of about $2.44 million in fund balance. It also forecasts increasing revenues from other sources to offset taxation, like billing Medicaid for more services, by $485,750.

Factoring in the revenue plan results in an approximately 2.35% local property tax increase.

Over the last seven budget cycles, the district has averaged an approximately 2.17% annual increase to taxation. MSAD 54 Superintendent of Schools Jonathan Moody noted that is well below the average U.S. inflation rate during that time, which is more than 3%.

Inconsistent increases in state valuation among the district’s six towns mean that, even with a modest budget increase, some towns’ taxpayers will be affected disproportionately in the proposed budget.

Each town pays its share through property taxes, and the amount each town pays is based on its property valuation calculated by the state as a percentage of the total state valuation for all six towns. Overall, the six towns’ valuations went up about 10%, budget figures show. The increase, though, varied from town to town.

Increases in allocations for each town in the budget approved Wednesday are:

• Canaan: $62,175, or 4.99%

• Cornville: $14,682, or 1.62%

• Mercer: $31,522, or 4.92%

• Norridgewock: $91,714, or 4.40%

• Skowhegan: $83,878, or 0.84%

• Smithfield: $93,907, or 7.44%

The budget includes 15 cuts to positions. About 86% of the spending plan represents personnel costs like wages and benefits, budget documents show.

A budget freeze and other cuts helped reduce the increases to taxation in this year’s budget, Moody said.