CHINA -- School Committee members reviewed their final draft of warrant articles for the May 31 special town meeting Thursday evening, knowing selectmen may reword them Monday evening.

The 2008-09 school budget request voters will discuss and vote on Saturday, May 31, is divided into 11 articles authorizing various expenditure categories, two articles asking for local funds to support the expenditures, and a summary article authorizing the School Committee to spend the funds allocated.

The total requested is less than $7.8 million.

Voters at the May 31 meeting, which begins at 9 a.m. or as soon thereafter as the quorum of 191 voters assembles at China Middle School, will have a chance to debate and amend the proposed expenditures.

The final figure they approve is then validated -- or rejected -- by a written ballot on June 10, along with other local questions and state voting.

State law requires the two-step approval process. It further requires that at the May 31 meeting, the vote on the request for almost $889,000 in additional local funds without state matching money be by written ballot.

The written ballot is required because the additional local money requested exceeds the state's Essential Programs and Services figure for China, the amount the state formula defines as adequate to support local education.

School Committee members are concerned that the procedure will confuse voters.

At Monday's selectmen's meeting, selectmen will decide whether to change the wording of the school budget articles and whether to recommend voters approve the School Committee's requested amounts.

As of Thursday evening, the articles were written in "open" format: The amounts requested are not in the articles, but below them as recommendations. Such wording allows voters to increase the appropriation, decrease it or approve it as presented.

If the amount requested appears in the article -- a "closed" article-- it becomes a ceiling. Voters may approve the figure presented or a lesser amount, but they cannot authorize more money.

School Committee members said the Budget Committee will also meet Monday evening to make its recommendations on the school budget.

Selectmen are scheduled to hold public hearings on five June 10 local ballot questions, beginning at 6:30 p.m. Monday, and open their meeting at 7 p.m.

In other business at Monday's School Committee meeting:

* Committee Chairman Charles Clark and member Diane Brandt reported on positive discussions with Vassalboro and Winslow counterparts about a possible new regional school unit consisting of only the three towns now in School Union 52, as an alternative to the larger regional unit combining the union towns with School Administrative District 47.

* Committee members approved setting 2008-09 Doris L. Young scholarships at $500 and awarding them to a list of 66 China students.

* The resignations of Craig Taylor, technology teacher, and Marion Chasteen, special education, were accepted with regret.