Wareham’s officials are still working to lower next school year’s proposed budget.

At a joint meeting between the School Committee, the Board of Selectmen, and the Finance Committee on December 2, Superintendent Dr. Kimberly-Shaver Hood and district Business Manager Michael MacMillan presented a “level-service” budget of $28,382,503.

Despite little feedback both in either direction, Shaver-Hood and MacMillan presented a new, $27,982,503 budget at Wednesday night’s School Committee meeting, which was approved. The budget for this current school year is $27,134,655.

The duo said they’d been working with Town Administrator Derek Sullivan to find ways to reduce the budget without seeing a decrease in services provided to Wareham’s students.

The decreased budget reflects a 3.12 percent increase over this current school year’s budget, but is $400,000 less than the initial proposal. MacMillan said that items cut from the initial budget may be able to be funded through the Capital Planning Committee, which eventually would need to be approved at Town Meeting.

The items MacMillan said that were removed from the budget included capital improvement expenditures, instructional materials and technology, and security and technology infrastructure. These items would then be presented to the Capital Planning Committee to be funded through the town’s free cash.

“(Sullivan) is comfortable with this process, but there’s not a guarantee because it depends on how much free cash there is,” said MacMillan. “It’s not 100 percent definite, but we are confident we can go through that process.”

School Committee member Judy Capporiccio said she had concerns with money being taken from the budget for security improvements, but Committee Chair Geoff Swett and MacMillan noted that any funding would ultimately need to be approved at Town Meeting, including the proposed budget.

“It is presented with the support of the Town Administrator,” said Swett. “I think you make a very good point, but we have reason to believe this will be supported . . . It’s never guaranteed.”

Swett said the move makes sense for the town because it involves hard goods that have a shelf-life of more than three years.

“For-profit business would routinely do this,” said Swett. “We have to make sure items have useful life. We could have done this from beginning because it wouldn’t change anything (involving services to students). That’s why this makes perfect sense.”

The Board unanimously approved the three separate phases of the budget, which include net spending ($26,481,970), non-net spending ($1,500, 533), and total budget ($27,982,503). Dr. Clifford Sylvia of the committee abstained from voting on the net spending phase.

The next step is for the budget to be presented to Sullivan for January 5 prior to seeking approval by the Board of Selectmen.