MANCHESTER — The public will get a final chance to weigh in on next year's $152 million school budget this evening, but it will be a brief opportunity.

A meeting of the Board of School Committee is scheduled for 5 p.m. today at City Hall, one day before the deadline for the 2013 budget.

The meeting was scheduled at the committee's regular session on Monday, after Manchester Superintendent of Schools Thomas Brennan told members that another public hearing was required under the city's charter.

The school committee voted two weeks ago to approve a spending plan for the $152 million allocated by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen, a $2.3 million increase over the mayor's proposed budget. The committee designated another $2.3 million from the district's expendable trusts, with the additional funds to be used primarily to restore dozens of faculty and administrative jobs slated to be left vacant.

There will likely be at least one revision of the budget the committee approved two weeks ago: it had eliminated an $82,000 earmark for charter school busing to further bolster the staffing budget. The state Department of Education subsequently informed Brennan that districts are required to cover the cost of busing students to charter schools. Two new charter schools are opening in Manchester in the fall.

Members of the group Citizens for Manchester Schools, which has staged several protests over what it says is the city's chronic under-funding of its public schools, are expected to speak out at this afternoon's meeting.

The group's president, Jim O'Connell, who is also president of the Hillside Middle School Parent Teacher Organization, decried the scheduling of a meeting at 5 p.m., when many parents are working, and with scarcely 24 hours notice.

“All of it is an indication of the miasma the school board finds itself in, and it's an indication of the lack of respect and interest in the citizens of this city,” O'Connell said. “I challenge how the schools on going to function on this budget. How are class sizes going to be managed or student safety in the schools?”

O'Connell wants to see a budget of at least $162 million, the amount he says the superintendant has indicated is needed to maintain existing services.

Superintendent Brennan did not return several calls for comment on Tuesday.

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Ted Seifer may be reached at tseifer@unionleader.com.