North Stonington — A proposal to renovate the district's schools is on its way to a townwide referendum, after the Board of Education voted unanimously Wednesday to approve the proposal to renovate the district's schools.

Next week, the Ad Hoc School Building committee hopes to bring the project before the Board of Selectmen and then the Board of Finance before a town meeting and referendum in the coming months.

The building project will include a two-story addition onto the existing gymatorium that would house both the middle and high school, and a renovation of the elementary school, adding a central kitchen and multipurpose room.

Chairman of the Ad Hoc School Building Committee Mike Urgo went through a few changes in the presentation ahead of the vote. He said the amount of the project remained unchanged: $38.5 million, or $23 million after state reimbursement.

A new enrollment report showed a dip in projected enrollment over the next few years, and the committee used those figures to estimate a slight dip in the reimbursement at both schools, which Urgo said is leading to their recommendation to apply for the state space standard waiver, which would bring the project's cost to the town to around $21.5 million.

The second was to include $1.1 million to cover the cost of short-term financing, which the committee based on its predicted cash flow.

"It just makes us conservative ... if it's too much, we don't spend it," Urgo said.

Overall, the reimbursement rate is 46.07 percent if the project is passed and submitted to the state in June. The security of the reimbursement rate has been raised at several tri-board meetings, and Board of Education Chairman Robert Carlson asked Urgo if the project would go forward if the project doesn't receive reimbursement.

Urgo said while the reimbursement was "about as close as you can get" to a guarantee, the  town could certainly put the brakes on the project if the state did not approve the reimbursement, and the town would not be on the hook for the full $38 million.

Before the presentation by Urgo, Superintendent Peter Nero addressed the Stonington feasibility study to accept Wheeler students, a draft of which overestimated the savings due to an error on a state form. He said the town would lose control of its budget if North Stonington were to send its high school students elsewhere.

"Any increase that would be coming from there ... every year their budget goes up," Nero said.

n.lynch@theday.com