Waterford — The Board of Education voted Thursday to pass a $46.9 million 2016-17 budget, a 3.34 percent increase from this year mostly driven by a nearly $1 million tuition payment to keep the magnet Friendship School in business next year.

The budget would have only gone up by 2.1 percent to cover the district's operation without the Friendship School tuition increase, Waterford Superintendent Thomas W. Giard told the board at its meeting Thursday.

And, Giard said, only about $150,000 in the $46,932,296 is going toward new costs.

"Every other dollar ... is either contractual or a mandated increase," he said. "It is by definition a needs-based budget."

The Friendship School has served Waterford and New London kindergarten and pre-kindergarten students since it was built with state funding in 2005.

It relies on state funding for magnet schools and pre-kindergarten education, as well as about $100,000 per year in tuition from both municipalities.

But pre-kindergarten state funding has gone down and magnet school funding has remained steady over the past five years while the school’s costs — especially for special education — have gone up.

The school has operated at a deficit for the last two fiscal years. Officials at LEARN, the regional agency that administers the school, don't know whether it will get any pre-kindergarten funding from the state budget for the 2016 fiscal year that ends in September.

Uncertain about how much state funding it will receive next year, if any, LEARN turned to the Waterford and New London districts to cover the costs of operating the school next year.

The amount Waterford must budget for the Friendship School could change amid ongoing negotiations over pre-kindergarten funding this year and overall magnet education funding next year, Giard said.

Giard assumed in creating his budget proposal that the state won't contribute any funding next year for pre-kindergarten.

"If and when funding for pre-k and magnet schools becomes clear ... we still have opportunity to bring back revision to this budget," Giard said. "If the picture becomes a little clearer (we'll be) able to hopefully reduce that tuition."

Connecticut law requires the state to fund pre-kindergarten education for families with limited income, but only “within available appropriations,” LEARN executive director Eileen Howley said at a meeting of the school's governing board this week.

The governing board's members voted at that meeting to allow LEARN to spend about $518,000 in money left over from fiscal year 2014 to cover some of the projected deficit for the school for the current fiscal year.

New London Superintendent of Schools Manuel J. Rivera has taken a different approach to the situation than Giard's, assuming in creating his budget that enough money will come through from the state that a local tuition increase won't be necessary.

The New London school board approved the amended proposed budget Thursday night.

But for now, both districts will have to forward their fiscal year 2017 budgets on to their local legislative bodies without knowing whether the state Department of Education will cover the amount needed to keep the two municipalities' tuition increases down next year.

The Waterford Board of Finance will consider the school budget alongside the townwide spending proposals before sending its proposal to Representative Town Meeting in March.

Waterford school board member Craig Merriman was the only person to vote against Giard's proposal Thursday. He said he supports the school but thinks the district should wait until state officials provide more information about their plans.

"There's no guarantee that we're going to get that money," he said. "It's just a number that doesn't sit well with me."

m.shanahan@theday.com

Twitter: @martha_shan