Ledyard - The finance committees of the Board of Education and Town Council met jointly Monday night for a preliminary look at big-ticket items in the 2015-16 education budget.

Although the town does not begin finalizing the budget until the spring, officials reviewed preliminary numbers in hopes of keeping the upcoming budget predictable and improving communication between the two boards.

Board of Education Business Manager Jason Lathrop presented projected salary increases and reviewed areas he felt might be under-budgeted, such as substitute teacher salaries and natural gas expenditures.

During the meeting, Mayor John Rodolico asked the board to keep the upcoming budget as lean as possible, citing the $60 million school renovation project that will be going to referendum in January.

"We cannot bring in budgets that are business as usual for the next five years," said the mayor, saying a 4 percent - or 1 mill - budget increase would be unfair to taxpayers shouldering millions for the school project.

"Leave our education system alone," countered Board of Education member David Luke, who said the district's school system is a selling point for people interested in moving to town. "We can't compromise on the school system."

But Rodolico said "there isn't much else" to cut, citing work already done to keep the town government efficient.

Town Council Finance Committee Chairman Mike France took issue with projected increases to education salaries, asking for more details and bringing up questions he asked during last year's budgeting process.

School board officials, however, said it was difficult to know exact numbers at this stage and that the projected salary increase is related to unavoidable staff turnover.

"We're giving you the early look at the budget that you wanted," said Board of Education Finance Committee Chairman Gordon Strickland. He said the budget numbers may have been questionable in previous years, but that Lathrop worked hard to make this year's budget projections as accurate as possible.

k.catalfamo@theday.com

Twitter: @kccatalfamo