After seven drafts and a missed deadline, the up-Island regional district school committee voted 4-1 this week to certify a $10.7 million budget for the coming year.

The FY2017 budget is a 3.18 per cent increase over last year from last year. The budget is ordinarily certified in December, but after concerns surfaced last year about rising cost of education up-Island, the process this year involved lengthy discussion at multiple meetings.

The new budget reflects a new part-time lunch assistant, full-time English language arts enrichment position and a two per cent raise for unionized teachers.

At a public hearing Monday before the vote, finance committee members from Chilmark and West Tisbury both spoke. Greg Orcutt from West Tisbury credited the school committee for working to cut spending, but said concerns remain.

“We’re all getting squeezed from every which way to Sunday,” Mr. Orcutt said. “This is an improvement, there is no two ways about it.”

Committee chairman Robert Lionette noted that the contribution to Other Post Employment Benefits will be $200,000 next year.

“You take that out of this budget and it’s a much leaner percentage, and I think that’s important to understand,” he said. “That OPEB contribution has nothing to do with any costs presently.”

Linda Coutinho from the Chilmark finance committee said cutting back on “nice things to have” could decrease the arguments over spending.

Committee member Kate DeVane said the budget actually is lean on nonessentials.

“Every year we find this push between how do we save money and how do we produce a really, really excellent education for our kids, which I think the up-Island region does incredibly well,” she said. “We don’t pile a lot of extra stuff on, the things in this budget like breakfast for kids I think that’s an essential thing. You can look at all the studies across the United States on providing breakfast for kids, it just improves learning one hundred per cent.”

Vineyard schools superintendent Dr. Matthew D’Andrea said the budget is responsible to both students and taxpayers.

Jeffrey (Skipper) Manter 3rd from West Tisbury cast the lone vote against the budget.