Editor's note: This corrects an earlier version of this article.

Waterford - The Board of Finance restored $120,000 to the proposed 2015-16 school budget during the board's final budget hearing Monday after cutting $220,000 last week.

The vote was 5-2, with board members Norman Glidden and Cheryl Larder voting against the restoration.

The board approved an overall town and school budget of approximately $88.3 million, roughly $1 million less than the amount requested by departments, boards and commissions. The vote was 6-1, with Glidden voting against. The budget still requires approval from the Representative Town Meeting.

The town portion of the budget was approved at $31,325,726, an increase from the $31,295,517 approved by the Board of Selectmen. The amounts exclude both the school and capital and debt service budgets.

The $220,000 initially slashed from the school budget last week was equal to the compensation packaged slated for the superintendent's position. Board of Education chairwoman Jody Nazarchyk and Democratic First Selectman candidate Peter Davis urged the Board of Finance during the public comment period before the Monday hearing to reinstate at least a portion of the funding.

The Board of Education has scheduled a special meeting for 6:30 p.m. today in Town Hall to vote on selection of a search agency to coordinate the superintendent search process and to discuss cuts made to the 2015-16 budget by the Board of Finance, according to Nazarchyk.

In September, Superintendent Jerome Belair announced he would retire and said he would end his tenure at the district in June 2015. The contract enacted at the time of his announced retirement split the $220,000 in compensation between a salary of $99,000 and retirement benefits of $121,000, to keep with a salary cap for retired educators outlined under state law.

The deal allowed Belair to begin collecting $140,000 in pension benefits from the state, in addition to the $220,000 compensation package from the district. The Board of Education in February voted to extend Belair's contract through the 2015-16 school year, upsetting the American Federation of Teachers Connecticut union and the Board of Finance.

Belair announced the day after the Board of Finance made the initial $220,000 cut that he would retire in June 2015, as originally planned.

Larder said before Monday's vote on the school budget that she thought the $45.4 million spending plan was generous. She commented that the school budget used to account for 40 percent of the town's total budget, but now accounts for roughly 50 percent.

"I just can't comprehend why we thought that was fair to the taxpayers," she said of Belair's contract.

t.townsend@theday.com

Twitter: @ConnecticuTess