After months of toiling over the Manchester school budget, it’s almost time for the Board of Aldermen to settle on an amount.

Aldermen had to make a decision on the city budget, which includes the mayor’s proposal for a $140 million school district budget for 2008-09, by Tuesday, June 10. As of June 3, aldermen and the mayor reached a tentative agreement on a $146 million budget, which is about $1.2 million less than last year’s budget. A joint meeting between aldermen and the school board was scheduled for June 4.

It is still unknown whether the $146 million budget would cut some academic, art and sports programs.

The school boards of Hooksett, Auburn, Bedford and Candia are keeping a close eye on the school budget proceedings, having expressed concerns over major cuts that would have to be imposed under the $140 million budget.

All four towns send their high school students to schools in Manchester, and want to make sure the Manchester school district lives up to the terms of its tuition agreements.

“Honestly, I think it would devastate the Manchester school district if they had that $140 million budget and they had to make those cuts,” said Hooksett School Board Chairman Maura Ouellette. “At this point, we have a contract for another 15 years.”

The Manchester Board of School Committee has taken three votes on whether to issue pink slips to teachers this year, all of which failed before the May 10 deadline to issues those layoff notices.

On the long list of potential cuts are the academies that were in the works for West High School, athletics, unified arts, gifted and talented programs, full-day kindergarten and a slew of other items.

“Unfortunately, those are the only areas we can cut from. We don’t have a lot of options. Most of our budget is set,” said Manchester School Board member Kathleen Kelley.

Manchester Board of School Committee Vice Chairman Katherine Labanaris said the $140 million budget could put Manchester’s contracts with the four sending towns in jeopardy. “It would be impossible to meet the contractual obligations with Auburn, Bedford, Hooksett and Candia,” she said, which include keeping class sizes at state recommended levels and delivering quality education, which under the state’s guidelines includes unified arts.

Around 2,000 Manchester school teachers, concerned parents and students fighting for their programming and curriculum showed up for a public hearing on Mayor Guinta’s proposed $140 million budget on April 28, voicing concerns about cutting staff, programming and extracurricular activities from Manchester schools.

Last year, aldermen approved a $147 million school budget, which is what the district is currently running on. The mayor’s proposal is about a 5 percent decrease over last year’s school district appropriation. “We’d like to at least have what we have now,” said Kelley.

The Manchester Board of School Committee originally asked for $153 million for the 2008-09 year.

Mike Lopez, chairman of the Board of Aldermen, said the board’s charge is to keep both taxpayers and students in the forefront.

“I think at the public hearing we had some discussion and many questions, and I think there’s many aldermen who are trying to make up their minds as to the minuses and pluses and the direction they could go,” said Lopez.

The mayor’s $140 million proposal, if accepted, would allow tax rates in Manchester to remain level for the second year in a row, something Labanaris said is important to Manchester residents.

The four sending towns said they can’t argue with the amount of money the Board of Aldermen decides to give the Manchester School District, but are hoping that number will allow Manchester to keep good on their contracts.

“We hope that the budget number that they come to will not affect our contract,” said Auburn School Board Chairman Elaine Hobbs. “We’re just continuing to try to stay on top of it and hope that when they go through their budget process that they will come to a number that is beneficial to the students, and that no programs will be cut, class sizes will be at recommended levels, and that extracurriculars and fine arts will be included.”

Candia School Board Chairman Ed Caito agreed with Hobbs, and said even if the $140 million budget does go into effect, that does not alone put Manchester in a problematic position. “It’s tough to look at a budget and say it is or it’s not going to work,” Caito said. “The budget remains a process in Manchester, and the mere passage of a budget does not mean a contractual violation.”

Bedford students are being phased into their new high school, but the current junior class will be spending next year at West High. By the 2009-10 school year, all Bedford high school students will be in the new high school, leaving a revenue shortfall in the Manchester school budget.

“This isn’t a surprise that there’s a loss of revenue and they can’t bring the expenses down,” Caito said, explaining that even as Bedford students at West High leave, costs are not going down and in some cases are rising.

Some Manchester School Board members said a lack of planning for the withdrawal of Bedford students is part of the problem.

“Those folks are quite correct that the Manchester School Board did not do a good job trying to plan ahead,” said Manchester School Board member Doug Kruse of those who have said that Manchester wasn’t ready for Bedford’s exodus.

“At the time, our school board didn’t really spend much time at all contemplating that possibility or beginning to plan for that possibility. When Bedford gave us the final notification that they were going to be leaving, there were several of us on the board advocating for a plan,” said Kruse. “A lot happened way too late in the game. I think Manchester collectively dropped the ball on that.”

Labanaris said it would have been impossible to make up the revenue for Bedford’s exit, and said the school district tried to keep costs in line at the school by cutting teachers last year to accommodate the decreased student population. Later, she added, one was asked to come back.

“I don’t know what they would want us to do in that case,” Labanaris said. Manchester School Board members said there has been talk of re-working Hooksett’s contract, which currently has some students going to Central and others going to West, so that all Hooksett high school students would attend West, a solution both Ouellette and Kelley said was not feasible.

Kruse said he would support looking into that option in the future. “I think at this point, given the financial situation Manchester is in, everything has to be on the table,” he said.