SEEKONK — The Board of Selectmen is urging residents to vote for a balanced budget at Monday’s Annual Town Meeting, warning that approving any more school financing than the board recommends would necessitate a Proposition 2½ override for fiscal 2009.

The selectmen are making clear that they wouldn’t support a tax override and they’re rejecting assertions by school officials that cuts to the schools’ budget proposal came without warning.

Chairman Robert L. Richardson said he was dismayed by recent comments by school officials to a local newspaper calling the trimming of the School Committee’s budget proposal “rude” and dishonest.

School officials have said that they were unaware of the selectmen and Finance Committee’s budget recommendations until minutes before a joint budget meeting on April 29.

But Richardson said Town Administrator Michael J. Carroll has done “yeoman’s work” to involve the School Department in biweekly financial team meetings on the fiscal forecasts.

“All the information has been made available to them,” Richardson said. “Thing is, the 65-35 split” – 65 percent of the budget allocated to the schools and 35 percent to municipal spending — “is the number this town has worked by for some time. It’s a levy-level budget. The schools have been made aware of this since Day 1.”

Richardson said school officials’ comments are “really off-base.”

“They’re asking for $794,000 more than what we have available,” he said. “We’re not cutting their budget. We’re bringing forward a balanced budget.”

Selectman John Whelan agreed, saying that the school board’s proposals for full-day kindergarten and added special-education instructors aren’t feasible in these tough economic times.

“If we only have $20, we can’t spend $25, that’s what it comes down to,” Whelan said.

It doesn’t make sense for the school district to seek new staff when the student enrollment is dropping, Selectman Michael H. Brady said.

“Why is the money necessary if enrollment is going down?” Brady said. “Some school administrators are playing scare tactics, and I think scare tactics are the worst thing you can do. Justify [the budget] to voters, not with emotion, not with rhetoric, but with facts.”

Richardson also criticized the School Committee for not detailing how it will reconcile its budget.

“They should be telling you what’s going to happen, and they haven’t,” Richardson said. “To wait until Town Meeting, that’s putting the blame on the taxpayer. It’s their job to put a budget together. It’s not your job to do that.”

Town Meeting is Monday at 7 p.m. at Seekonk High School.

The Board of Selectmen is recommending a $39.6-million budget for the next fiscal year, a spending plan that represents a 3.30-percent or $1.3-million increase over current year financing.

On the municipal side, the budget boost is driven mostly by increases in fuel and utility costs, as well as a roughly 12-percent increase in health insurance payments, town officials have said. The proposal also calls for hiring a new recreation director for three months and two new firefighters for half of the next year.

The budget recommended by the selectmen and the Finance Committee cuts the School Department’s proposed budget increase by more than $794,000. The proposal hikes the schools’ budget by $450,000 over current-year spending.

The School Department had requested a $19.6-million operating budget, a $1.3-million, or 7-percent increase, over its current-year budget. The budget called for adding 16 new positions, including 6 teachers and aides for a new full-day kindergarten program, as well as 8 special-education teachers, nurses and aides to serve 16 students with learning, physical and behavioral problems who now must be bused outside the Seekonk district.

Beside voting on the fiscal 2009 budget, voters will also decide on $543,626 in proposed capital expenditures, including $100,000 for architectural and engineering work in preparation for building a new senior/community center, new Department of Public Works dump truck, an ultraviolet light disinfection system for the Seekonk High School pool, sprinkler systems at town fields and ceiling and lighting replacements at the Seekonk Public Library.

Also on Monday’s warrant are questions on:

•Printing all municipal employees’ annual gross wages in the town annual report.

•Creating an ad-hoc committee with representatives from the Board of Library Trustees, the Seekonk Library Trust, the Conservation Commission, the Friends of the Library, the Land Conservation Trust, the Recreation Committee and three other at-large members to oversee the creation of the town’s first public park at the former landfill behind the town library.

•Renting a portion of the public safety facility property for use as a communication tower.

•Using no more than $4,000 to determine the viability, cost and use of alternative energy. This question was placed on the warrant by voter petition.

A reception will be held before Town Meeting, starting at 5:30 p.m., for Carroll, the town administrator. There will be refreshments.

The Town Meeting warrant and proposed budget can be viewed at Town Hall and on the town’s Web site, www.seekonk.info/town.

mwims@projo.com