The school district is proposing a budget of $58.3 million, an increase of $1.9 million or 3.3 percent over the $56.4 million in total appropriations for the current school year.

Property owners could see an increase of 74 to 88 cents on the 2009 tax rate, depending upon how much funding the district receives from the state. The law says Bedford should get a $3.5 million grant, but because of the instability in state finances, the district is prepared, if it remains the same $3 million as this year, according to Mark Conrad, the chief financial officer.

The corresponding tax rate would be $14.79 to $14.93. The owner of a house valued at $300,000 could then owe between $4,437 and $4,479 in taxes at the new rate.

School officials said they worked hard to trim a budget to fit lean economic times.

“There is no fluff in this budget at all and simply represents the costs of providing a quality education to Bedford,” board chairman David Sacks said. “There are no wants here, just needs that are needs now.”

The estimated tax does not account for any changes the School Board may make between now and the deliberative session in February. It also does not include any salary increases in the new contract the union for library assistants, secretaries, teacher aides and other support staff is negotiating with the district.

The district is in its second of three-year contracts for its other unions. Salary raises for teachers in the contract next year will be $987,763, or 29 cents on the tax rate. The teachers’ average pay will be 5.2 percent higher, said Superintendent Tim Mayes.

Custodians and maintenance staff, who make up the other union, can expect 65 cents more per hour at acost of $63,413, or 2 cents to the taxpayer.

The operating budget of $57,240,662 accounts for the rest of the tax rate, running from 43 to 57 cents depending on how much money comes from the state.

Some of the increase is due to the third and final year of the high school opening, when seniors will be added, said Conrad.

That cost will be $1.6 million.

The district has offset that by curtailing costs in other areas, such as non-personnel expenses in kindergarten through eighth grade, which are down 3 percent, despite inflation in prices for paper and other materials, said Conrad.

Several other factors are also at work. Health insurance rates could be 8.7 percent. The rate at which the district pays into the state retirement system is up 20 percent and utility costs remain a perennial challenge, said Conrad. The district is budgeting $3.50 per gallon for heating oil next winter, above the $2.75 budgeted for this year, he said.

Oil was more than $2.75 per gallon this year, and the district made up for its deficit in that line item by saving money on insurance, which turned out to be lower than the guaranteed maximum rate increase. The district also used 110,000 gallons of oil, less than the anticipated 136,000 at the high school, said Conrad.

Given those factors, plus the a near-doubling of enrollment in some cases, Sacks said the administration has “overdelivered on our expectations by presenting a budget that has just a 2 percent increase,” referring to the operating budget, minus the contractual salary increases.

“An 0.8 percent of that is covered by revenues on the food program, and so they are presenting a budget that is 1.2 percent more than last year,” he continued. “We are adding the final grade at the high school and we have increased enrollments at all grades but first grade. So, they have definitely listened to the community.”

Even so, Sacks said the board is still asking the administration to trim even more from the budget.

In the current worst-case scenario, taxpayers are facing 88 cents more on the rate. The district in recent years, however, has over-estimated the rate by 41 cents, said Mayes.

“We try to do things conservatively so we don’t provide too much of an optimistic view,” he said.

The 88-cent estimate comes on the heels of years in which the rate has fluctuated, coinciding with the opening of the high school. The 2008 rate was actually a decrease of 17 cents from the 2007 rate of $14.22, which itself was an increase of $1.81 from the prior year. In 2006, the rate went up 78 cents, while in 2005, it dipped down 51 cents.

“We would expect our budget to stabilize after next year because then you would have completed grade 12,” Conrad said.