Concord voters will decide in November whether a state-run lottery game called keno should be played in restaurants and bars in their city.

City councilors voted unanimously Monday to put the question on Election Day ballots and hold a public hearing beforehand for residents to debate the merits of the decision.

The state Legislature approved keno in June as a new revenue source to aid communities that offer full-day kindergarten to their students. For those districts – nearly 75 percent – the state pays only half the standard per-pupil amount for kindergartners, or $1,800.

Under the new law, regardless of whether the city or town allows keno, districts that offer full-day kindergarten will receive an additional $1,100 a year per student. That number can increase to $1,800 if keno revenues exceed expectations, said Steve Shurtleff, a city councilor who also serves as the minority leader in the House of Representatives.

State Lottery Commission Executive Director Charles McIntyre told the city council that the revenue estimates he presented to the Legislature were “conservative.”

“I certainly would anticipate us exceeding that number with or without you,” he said.

Concord doesn’t yet offer full-day kindergarten districtwide, but school board members have studied and debated the move at length. They decided to hold off during their budget process this spring, with some members saying they’d take heed of the funding debate at the State House.

If it were to happen that very few or no communities allowed keno, McIntyre said he would report to House and Senate budget writers that revenues wouldn’t meet expectations “and then the decision would be theirs as to what to do,” he said.

Shurtleff assured that the state would meet its obligation to provide at least $1,100 per student to full-day kindergarten districts. For his home school district, Merrimack Valley, he said that would amount to roughly $176,000 a year.

With municipal votes in cities scheduled months ahead of their counterpart towns, the clock is ticking throughout the state for cities to decide whether to opt into keno.

Concord’s city councilors debated Monday whether to hold a public hearing before deciding whether to put the keno question on the November ballot. In that case, if they decided to go ahead, they would have had to schedule a second hearing to touch on the pros and cons of the game.

The council instead reasoned that it didn’t have to pause to ask residents whether they wanted a vote.

“Folks in Concord rarely have an opportunity to vote in a referendum format,” Councilor Allan Herschlag said. “By placing this on the ballot, we’re placing this in the hands of the community as to whether or not they would prefer to have keno or not have keno in Concord. I’m inclined to leave it up to the residents of the community to make that determination as opposed to making a determination for them.”

The councilors said they’d schedule a public hearing in October.

Mayor Jim Bouley, who has worked as a lobbyist for the gambling company Intralot, stepped down from the council for the duration of its discussion of keno.

(Nick Reid can be reached at 369-3325, nreid@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at @NickBReid.)