A $28.9 million school budget for the 2007-’08 school year – representing a 6.8 percent hike over the current budget – sailed through its first reading last week, and has one more hurdle before it goes to the Scarborough Town Council.

The Scarborough School Committee unanimously approved the school budget at a meeting Thursday. The committee gives it its second and final reading March 1. If approved on a second reading, the budget then goes to the town council for approval.

Most of the $1.8 million increase from last year’s $27.1 million is due to contractual increases for school employees, David Doyle, superintendent of school, said Friday. The school department is also anticipating a 15 percent increase in the cost of providing benefits for school employees.

The budget also proposes to add a guidance counselor for the town’s three primary schools. The budget also includes the addition of part-time teaching positions and the salaries of some teachers and education techinicians that were previously paid for through grants.

The presentation of the budget was lead by Chris Brownsey, finance committee chairman. He gave an overview of where the money for the proposed budget would be used throughout the school district. Brownsey’s presentation showed that nearly 75 percent of the budget comes out of local taxpayers’ money, and about one quarter of the budget is funded by the state. In terms of where that money goes, 68.4 percent is spent on salaries, 15.5 percent on benefits, 4.1 percent on energy and 12 percent on other services.

Brownsey also highlighted several requests for additional staff positions. These changes were explained in greater depth to the school committee by the principals from each of the schools.

The budget included a full-time guidance counselor for the primary schools and a part-time counselor for the intermediate school.

“Guidance has been talked about at the board level for quite a while,” Brownsey said.

At the middle school, there was a recommendation for an additional teacher in order to support the large fifth-grade class that will be graduating from Wentworth this spring. Enrollment in general did not greatly affect the budget; the projected increase for the district is only 1 percent or 34 students.

The budget included several part-time positions at the high school, in order to provide additional sections to accommodate all students who would like to participate in particularly popular classes, such as Spanish and music. The new positions will allow for one more music class and the addition of a Spanish 5 course, which will enable students to continue their study of the language without having to take the Advanced Placement level class.

At the primary level, the budget included one part-time math ed tech to be added and one full-time math ed tech to be moved out of grant and into the operating budget. At intermediate level, one literacy teacher and one part-time math support teacher were added. Overall, the budget included $422,619 to cover the cost of new positions.

Other recommended expenditures would go to activities previously funded by booster clubs and to a late bus service for students who stay after school, which was part of the Wellness Regulations, a policy that was adopted by the school committee in the same meeting.

There was not much debate about the budget at the first reading, and several board members thanked Brownsey and the finance committee for their work.

The Scarborough School Committee will meet Thursday, March 1, at the town council chambers, to give a second reading to the proposed 2007-’08 school budget.

The meeting begins at 7:30 p.m.