At Saturday’s annual town meeting Raymond voters rejected the School Committee’s budget request for the 2007/2008 school year but were able to agree on the Budget Finance Committee’s suggestion of $9 million.

“It’s really only a difference of $68,495,” said Selectman Joseph Bruno. “That difference is enough to keep the tax rate pretty close to what it is now.”

The school budget had been a hot issue for the town and was expected to cause some controversy at the meeting.

School Committee Chairman Roger Ginn had insisted the budget increase was necessary while Selectmen and Budget Finance Committee members had disagreed.

“Certain areas need to be looked at,” said Budget Chair Rolf Olsen. “We came up with a recommendation to lower the budget. The changes may not be comfortable, but they were changes that would not have affected the education side of things.”

Both sides agreed that the fate of the school budget depended on meeting attendance.

“It was a very close vote Saturday,” said Bruno. “In the end, I think it turned out great. In the future, we (the Selectmen) hope to work with the school committee and help them with the budget. I hope they are open to that as well.”

The 200 voters who met for seven hours at the Jordan-Small Middle School approved $576,346 in allocations for the Fire Department, $512,138 to maintain the curbside waste collection system, and a $40,000 increase for capital road improvements.

Residents killed one article, a land ordinance change suggested by the Comprehensive Plan Committee. That ordinance was turned down possibly because of clerical errors from last year’s vote and according to Bruno will probably be reviewed by the Board of Selectmen in the coming weeks.

“We will probably have a special town meeting in the next couple of weeks to make corrections to the ordinance,” said Bruno. “It was best to just vote against it and then make the corrections to it.”

Residents also decided to move the annual meeting to June to co-exist with the primaries and other elections such as Portland Water District board elections.

At Friday’s election, close to 300 voters re-elected Michael Reynolds and Mark Gendron to 3-year terms on the Board of Selectmen. Incumbents Jean Carter and Dennis Cole will return to the Budget/Finance Committee where they will be joined by newcomer Brandon Milton.

The School Committee’s open seat will be filled by Kevin Woodbrey who did not run for the committee but was elected by 83 write-in votes.