The vote to increase the school budget left some town officials seething, as in the weeks before the meeting the School Committee had stressed the need for a united front with the Budget Board and the town administrator on the budget that was being presented to voters. Almond said he was particularly bothered because no one during the discussion about adding the $517,248 could explain what it would pay for that was not already in the budget.

“Usually, the argument is it is needed to restore something,” Almond said. “You had an entire School Committee that just sat there silent when it was asked ‘what is this money for.’ ”

School Committee Chairwoman Mary Anne H. Roll said the committee was caught off guard when the increase was proposed. She said the committee had no role in preparing the motion and had been focusing its efforts on how to defend the original $47.78 million figure, not add to it.

“Nobody was more surprised than the members of the School Committee,” Roll said.

“We did not organize that,” she said. “We had no strategy for that.”

Almond said the committee members should have spoken against the increase, but Roll said the committee members didn’t think they could, in good conscience, speak against an increase if the voters wanted to approve it. She asked what the Town Council would have done had a motion to increase town services come from the floor.