DEXTER — Details of a proposed $7 million budget for SAD 46 will be provided during a meeting next week at Dexter Regional High School.

The meeting will be at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the school cafeteria.

Action on the proposed budget will be taken during a referendum June 22 in each of the four communities that make up SAD 46. The polls will be open in Dexter from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Julian P. Clukey Army Reserve Center; and from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Exeter Town Office, Garland Town Office and Ripley School.

“I think it’s a conservative, sound budget that begins the road to providing appropriate programming,” Superintendent Raymond Poulin said Friday. He said the plan would increase spending by 3.6 percent overall and reflects a 3.2 percent increase in assessments.

As proposed, the budget would increase the assessment to Dexter by $31,286; Exeter by $9,525; Garland by $17,290 and Ripley by $5,375.

The spending plan includes some shifts in positions and the addition of a mathematics position at Dexter Regional High School and a district computer technician- coordinator.

Poulin said the budget includes increases for junior varsity athletic teams at the high school and middle school. User fees charged to students who participated in athletics have been dropped. Depending upon how many children in a family participated in athletics, the fees ranged from $20 to $70.

The music program would benefit from the budget because money is included to address space needs at the high and middle schools, Poulin said.

Eliminated from the budget were a part-time high school consumer science program, the Ripley Community-Based Learning program, and a guidance counselor who served the Tri-County Technical Center and the ninth grade.

There is still a full-time guidance director at the high school.

An 11 percent increase in the cost of health insurance is reflected in the spending plan.

Directors are seeking permission to increase the amount of money they can transfer from one budget line to another from 5 percent to 10 percent. This would give directors enough leverage so they would not have to budget for the worst-case scenario on each line item in the budget, according to the superintendent.