Brunswick school officials face a daunting challenge to craft a 2012-13 budget with almost $3 million less than what’s available for this year’s educational expenses.

Painful deliberations remain to come, but a positive note resonated from Monday’s Town Council meeting. Town Manager Gary Brown announced that a state grant to fund road repairs near Cook’s Corner will likely free up $350,000 in municipal funds to help offset decreases in state and federal education subsidies.

That figure represents barely 10 percent of the overall school budget shortfall, but the collaboration that produced it should not go unrecognized. Laudably, local legislators, town councilors and municipal staff showed their willingness to seek creative ways to address the school department’s dilemma.

That hasn’t always been the case. Past town councils often waited for the School Board to submit a draft budget before marking it up and sending it back for revisions. School and municipal budgets often took parallel paths to passage, occupying separate universes until days before enactment.

Following last week’s reasonable discussions of how school budget and police station construction align, Monday’s announcement indicates that town councilors and municipal staff have already engaged in the school budget process — and that they’re committed to a collaborative and innovative approach to bridging the education funding chasm.

While recognizing that important municipal responsibilities — such as maintaining roads and building a new police station — can’t be abandoned, Brown and the Town Council have taken a major, positive step toward obliterating artificial boundaries that formerly separated school and municipal fiscal oversight.

Likewise, local legislators moved beyond rhetoric and delivered on a promise to tap state funding sources outside the annual education subsidy to ameliorate the situation.

It now behooves Brunswick residents to join this team effort by acknowledging that cuts must be made and by keeping an open mind about constructive suggestions for how to minimize the damage or seek other funding alternatives, such as collaboration with other school systems, local businesses or colleges.

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