The School Department has begun the months-long process of creating a budget for the next fiscal year.

Superintendent Dr. Barry Rabinovitch has asked principals to build a "level service" budget for their schools, meaning that they should only request the funding needed to provide the same amount of programming as currently offered, and any increase in budgets should be tied to narrowing achievement gaps between Wareham student performance and statewide averages.

"The budget is a very intense process," Rabinovitch said during the Nov. 17 School Committee meeting.

The process began two weeks ago, with principals receiving instructions as to how to prepare their budgets. Rabinovitch will review the proposed budgets in early December. An all-day budget review session will take place on Wednesday, January 5, with principals presenting their budgets to representatives from the Finance and School committees.

Rabinovitch will present his draft budget to the School Committee at its January 12 meeting, and a public hearing with the Board of Selectmen, Finance Committee, and Town Administrator Mark Andrews will occur on January 19 at  7 p.m. in the Wareham High School cafeteria.

The School Committee encourages members of the public to attend the hearing and speak to and ask questions about the budget.

The school budget is "very time intensive," said School Committee Chair Cliff Sylvia. "We really do look upon it as a situation where we can pull in all kinds of different people ... with different viewpoints."

Roughly 100 people attended the all-day budget meeting last year.

The School Committee will vote on the budget on January 26. The budget is due to the Town Administrator on February 1, and will be presented to Town Meeting for approval in April.