With the 2012 Town Meeting approaching in March, the Finance Committee joined the Board of Selectmen Thursday to take a look at the largest portion of the town budget - school funding.

Coming near the end of a multi-week process where the town’s various departments’ budgets were presented to the two committees, the Thursday meeting was split between a look at Westford’s payments to the Nashoba Valley Technical High School District and the Westford Public School District budget.

Currently, the town is expected to request from residents a total appropriation of $47,741,283 toward the public schools and $708,970 toward Nashoba Valley Tech dues for the Fiscal Year 2013 budget to be voted upon at Town Meeting in March.

For Nashoba Valley Tech, the largest issue facing voters in Westford as well as Chelmsford, Groton, Littleton, Pepperell, Shirley and Townsend will be the possible inclusion of Ayer as the newest member of the district.

Although the loss of out-of-district enrollments from Ayer into Nashoba Valley Tech will hurt the district’s bottom line, Nashoba Valley Technical High School District Superintendent Judith Klimkiewicz noted that inclusion of Ayer was long overdue. Klimkiewicz listed the contributions the town had given over the years to the school, and that Ayer would share the other towns’ debt load if accepted as the district’s newest member town.

Klimkiewicz also stressed that the out-of-district enrollments from Ayer may disappear soon if they are not accepted, noting that Minuteman Regional Technical High School in Lexington may accept the town into their district if Nashoba Valley does not.

For the Westford Public School system, Superintendent Bill Olsen stressed the district spends less per dollar than other public school districts in Massachusetts with comparable population and scholastic achievement.

Concerns over stimulus money that would be disappearing and rising fuel costs were allayed somewhat earlier in the budget process when Town Manager Jodi Ross withdrew a request for a level funded budget from the public school department, allowing an expected increase that can maintain level services.

However, discussion arose over the increase in comparison to other departments which had not seen increases or had seen cuts in recent years, such as the Police and Fire Departments.

The official budget oversight process between the joint boards will conclude on Thursday night with a meeting looking at revenues and a last look at all the departments.