SOUTH PORTLAND – Councilors will meet Monday, Aug. 23, to discuss putting the question on the November ballot.

SOUTH PORTLAND – While the South Portland City Council supports constructing a new high school for the city, the seven-member body is nowhere near a consensus about how much the city can afford to spend on the project.

The current proposal on the table, drafted by Harriman and Associates and backed by the South Portland Board of Education and two independent consultants, would call for the citizens to fund a $44.2 million renovation/construction project.

The council will be meeting on Monday, Aug. 23, to discuss the possibility of putting a question on the November ballot asking residents to approve the $44.2 million spending plan. A final decision on if the item goes to referendum and how much the residents will be asked to approve is expected at the council’s Sept. 8 meeting.

Councilors Tom Blake, Linda Boudreau and Maxine Beecher support the project and its budget in its entirety. Councilors Patti Smith and Jim Hughes indicated they could support a project closer to $39 million, roughly the figure of $40 million that Mayor Tom Coward had in mind. Councilor Rosemarie DeAngelis said she would support a project of $35 million, but could not support the current plan as presented.

“I think it is too much money, it is too big and it is too bad of an economic time,” she said.

Many of the councilors, including Blake, Hughes, DeAngelis and Coward, worried the measure would not pass in November with a figure of $44.2 million, and that it would suffer the same fate the $55 million November 2008 referendum suffered.

Regardless of the price the council decides to put on the November ballot, Boudreau said funding the project is a long-term investment into the future of the city.

“I think of this as an investment for the community,” she said. “It is probably the biggest single investment that we will do. I think this is the time to do it and do it right. This is the right project for us and the right project for our children.”

Boudreau also said she is not supportive of carving into the project just for the sake of getting to a money figure.

If the project is done right, Blake said, it could be something to be proud of for many years.

“I am hoping if we build the project right, it will be like Mahoney [Middle School] and a 100 years from now we will still be looking at a nice high school site,” he said.

Finance Director Greg L’Heureux indicated the $44.2 million project would mean an additional $1,724 in taxes over the life of a 20-year loan for a resident with a home valued at $200,000, roughly the average price of a home in the city.