LEBANON — Officials crafting the city’s school renovation project will face a difficult choice during a meeting Wednesday evening.

Should the School Board keep about $3 million in projects favored by parents and students in their final plan or should it scrap the improvements to appease residents concerned about costs?

That’s the dilemma architects will present with two new proposals for the Lebanon School District’s building modernization project.

One plan would retain efforts — such as the construction of a new cafeteria at the Hanover Street School — included in past proposals for a cost of $20.4 million, according to a memo from New Hampton, N.H.-based firm Marinace Architects.

The other choice would do away with the cafeteria and other upgrades in favor of expanded classroom and instructional space. That plan would cost $17.5 million, according to the firm.

School Board Chairwoman Wendy Hall said Tuesday that the nine-member School Board will review both plans. However, she’s not sure there will be a formal vote to adopt either Wednesday.

Both options are the result of planning that began shortly after a March vote that killed a similar renovation project.

City residents voted, 893-713, to approve a $20 million plan that included new school entrances, additional classroom and office space, and improved multipurpose spaces. The vote fell short of the 60% approval needed to authorize long-term borrowing for the upgrades.

Superintendent Joanne Roberts worked with architects over the summer to reexamine plans. They together came up with $4 million in cuts that the School Board endorsed in September.

Architects’ new $17.5 million proposal would do away with plans to build a kitchen at the Mount Lebanon School and instead expand the building’s multipurpose room to include a cooking area, stage and table storage room.

Another addition at the West Lebanon school would contain a new office and secure entryway in place of a larger general office addition.

At the Hanover Street School, architects propose forgoing a cafeteria expansion and second-story classrooms. Instead, they would build a hallway that would allow students direct access to the cafeteria now shared with the high school.

Changes to Lebanon High School also were reconfigured so a new band room would wrap around the front of the existing building, which “makes the plan more compact” and preserves green space, the architects said.

A 775-seat auditorium pitched in the past as an expansion for the high school is no longer a part of the plans. The School Board voted unanimously last month to drop the auditorium addition from plans, with members saying the project could detract from more pressing needs.

Plans to spend $9.4 million on the auditorium were defeated by voters, 960-648, at the polls in March, with a warrant article garnering only 40.2% support.

It’s unclear how the new renovation figures would affect Lebanon’s tax rate. School officials haven’t estimated the cost of a 20-year bond and are unlikely to do so until the School Board makes a final decision, according to Roberts, the superintendent.

“Until the board has a sense of the direction they’d like to head, we don’t know the amount of the total (cost),” she said in a phone interview on Tuesday.

If approved, the renovation project would come on the heels of other anticipated tax and utility increases in Lebanon.

The City Council this year raised water rates 8% and sewer rates went up 7.2%. Officials are planning a similar increase in 2020, City Manager Shaun Mulholland told a gathering of municipal and school officials earlier this month.

Municipal officials also are expecting Lebanon’s budget to result in a 3% property tax increase for 2020, although that will be formally decided by the council in December, he said.

Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.