About 50 Pembroke residents attended a public input meeting on Saturday, Feb. 2, to hear about the Budget Committee’s cuts to the school and town proposed 2008-09 budgets to soften the blow of a hefty projected tax increase.

While there wasn’t much feedback gained from the meeting, it appears the town’s residents are at a loss for how to react to the cuts, which include slicing staff from the school district’s budget.

“Most of the people seemed to be saying, with their silence, that they were in favor of the cuts the Budget Committee proposed,” said Budget Committee Chairman David Freeman-Woolpert.

Unexpected special education costs to the school district this year, particularly in special placement, led to a deficit of about $500,000 within the district, according to Superintendant Thomas Haley.

Add in the second year of a collective bargaining contract with the teachers union, increased transportation costs and higher county taxes, and you’ve got a school budget that is 9 percent larger than last year at around $23.2 million, which would have driven the school portion of the tax rate up by about 15 percent for the coming year.

The selectmen’s proposed budget was a frugal 2 percent increase over last year, but the town is cooperating with the school to drive down the overall tax increase of 10 percent.

Both budgets combined would result in a projected rate of $25.95 per $1,000 of assessed value, an extra $448, to result in a tax bill for a house valued at $200,000 at $5,190.

The Budget Committee asked both the School Board and Board of Selectmen to go back into their budgets and figure out where cuts could be made to help offset the impending hike in taxes, said Freeman- Woolpert.

The Budget Committee’s recommended budgets currently sit at around $22.9 million for the school and $7.6 million for the town, which would result in a 6.7 percent increase in taxes and a rate of $25.18 per $1,000 of assessed value. The $1.52 increase on the tax rate would result in an extra $304 in taxes for the same $200,000 home, a total bill of $5,036.

The School Board was asked to shave more than $310,000 off its 2008-09 proposed budget, which, given their otherwise level-funded budget, would require them to cut staff and funding for after-school programming.

The School Board has not yet decided what positions would be cut from the budget, and would likely not do so until next summer when the official revenues come in and the full impact of the shortfall can be calculated, Freeman-Woolpert said.

Selectmen came back to the Budget Committee after voting to take their share of the cuts, $150,000, from the 2008-09 budget year’s typical allocations for the parks and recreation, large fire equipment and highway equipment capital reserve funds.

Any additional cuts would have to be made to the roads portion of the budget, which the Budget Committee refused to touch.

Withholding those yearly deposits won’t affect those departments for the ensuing year, said Town Administrator Geoff Ruggles, but the potential to offset future taxes with those funds will decrease further down the road.