WEST GREENWICH — Voters at the annual financial meeting of the Exeter-West Greenwich school district last night approved a total operating budget of $31.6 million for the coming fiscal year and gave their blessing to a $5.9-million bond issue for upgrades at all of the district’s five schools.

The meeting, in the auditorium of the junior-senior high school, drew 254 voters — 143 from West Greenwich and 111 from Exeter.

The yes vote on the bond will mean a new roof and other building and parking lot improvements at the junior-senior high; a new gym floor and bleachers at the Metcalf School, and technology, security and other systems upgrades at all schools.

Last week the district received approved from the Board of Regents of Elementary and Secondary Education for a 56 percent reimbursement of the capital outlay, slashing the net weighty of bond issue to $2.8 million, school officials said.

“I appreciate the support of the community… I appreciate the confidence the voters showed tonight by supporting both the capital program and operational budget,” said Supt. Thomas Geismar. “We look forward, as your district, to meeting the challenge of improving student’s education and maintaining safe and healthy schools ... and being fiscally responsible.”

The operating budget prepared by Geismar calls for an increase of $837,214 in local taxes, with increases of $279,768 coming from Exeter and $557,446 from West Greenwich, each town’s proportionate share in property taxes, based on enrollment. The total budget includes $29.3 million for operations and $2.3 million to pay down debt. It relies on $7.2 million in state aid, the same figure received this year, to supplement the $22.4 million in local taxes from both towns.

The voters decided eight resolutions in all, by voice votes which for the most part, were resounding yeas and a smattering of nays. An amendment proposed by Exeter resident Paul McFadden to decrease the budget request by roughly $490,000 was defeated in a paper ballot.

The School Committee at an earlier date had deleted a proposal to allocate $400,000 toward the renovation of the track at the junior-senior high, a project of the nonprofit parents group EWGSports4Kids. School Committee Chairwoman Susan DeSack said the would not have been eligible for capital reimbursement by the state.

A flier from the West Greenwich Town Council passed out to residents at the meeting, and circulated by e-mail last week, stated that the council endorsed the $5.9-million bond issue but could not “endorse the school [operating] budget as proposed due to the negative impact it will have on municipal services.”

West Greenwich Town Manager Kevin A. Breene, who also is a state senator, said municipal officials have little to work with because of the state law that limits year-to-year property tax increase and the fact that voters decide the regional schools budget before the town can work out its own spending plan.

Breene said West Greenwich will only be allowed to raise about $750,000 more in the coming year in property taxes, with 75 percent of that increase going to the schools.

Already the West Greenwich Town Council is predicting it will need to lay off three police officers, eliminate the police third shift and cancel the summer recreation program, among other things, to make ends meet.

“We’ve cut virtually every [department’s] budget. We try to be frugal in town,” Breene said before the financial meeting. “What makes it tough with a regional school district is that once the voters have decided, you can’t go back and cut it. It leaves us pretty strapped. It’s not a matter of where the money is going so much as what’s left for us.”

lsparks@projo.com