ELLSWORTH – Voters approved the city’s school budget Tuesday with a total vote count of 434-195.

The $14,307,003 budget is a 2.8 percent increase from last year and was approved unanimously by the City Council last week.

“Most of [the increase] is due to a decrease in funds from the state,” said Interim Superintendent Wayne Enman after the council vote. “With inflation and fuel costs, this is a great budget.”

The city lost more than $600,000 in state funding, partly because of an increase in property value, he said.

According to Enman, the increases came primarily from salaries, insurance and fuel costs.

The council allocated gas costs at $3.30 a gallon when the budget was built, under the roughly $4 a gallon gas costs now.

“We are going to hope that it goes down again, otherwise we will have to tighten our belt,” he said.