The $17 million proposal to renovate two Wiscasset schools that was presented to selectmen recently will be scaled back, the school committee decided Monday night.

The proposal, which committee members had first thought they would present to voters on the June ballot, will also be likely be put off until the fall.

The purpose of the proposed renovations is twofold - make the necessary changes to fit the entire school population into two buildings instead of the current three, thereby allowing one building to be closed; and bringing the other two schools up to code and making the capital improvement changes that will make the buildings last another ten to 20 years.

Committee member Doug Smith said he met with architect Stephen Blatt last week to review the entire proposal.

"While this would be the ideal solution in an ideal world, it's just not going to work now, given the economic situation in Wiscasset and the state of Maine," Smith said.

"When we began looking at this, the perception was that the primary school had been sinking so that would be the school to close. When we found out that wasn't true, we started looking at the middle school as the one to close. We also realized that the town has been putting off a lot of major repairs on all three buildings, so we looked at folding everything into one plan.

Smith said it's unfortunate the two hasn't been putting two or three percent of the school budget aside every year to pay for capital repairs.

During his meeting with the architect, Smith said, "We started looking at the nitty gritty. I have a construction background, so I asked questions like whether we could put the sprinkler system outside the walls. "

Referring to Blatt, Smith said, "He's going to come back with a proposal that chops millions of dollars off."

But, to do that, Smith said, the architect needs an additional $20,000. The school committee voted to take it out of the contingency account in this year's budget. Voters had previously approved two appropriations for the architect's work, totaling $35,000.