CONCORD, N.H. — The Concord City School Board will hold two public hearings next week to discuss the 2024-2025 operating budget.
Terry Wolf, the district's new communications director, said one public hearing will be held Monday at 6 p.m. in the SAU 8 boardroom in the basement of the district office. She said the meeting would be broadcast live on Concord TV. A second meeting is scheduled for Wednesday at 6 p.m. in the Beaver Meadow Elementary School gymnasium, 40 Sewalls Falls Road. The meeting will not be livestreamed, she said. However, we plan to record and broadcast it at a later date. The meeting will also be posted on YouTube.
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The district has proposed a budget of $108,008,631. This is an increase of approximately $1.8 million or 1.67 percent. Wolf said budget impacts include cuts to negotiated salaries, HVAC deposits, health care costs and the National Adequacy Fund. The board will discuss math interventionists, class sizes at the elementary level, world language changes and school resource officers at Landrett Middle School. Spending for SROs has been discussed for years but remains unfunded despite support from the Concord Police Department and the public. The city pays a quarter of the SRO's salary, similar to his SRO in the Merrimack Valley School District.
according to budget, the salary line increased by 4.5 percent, or nearly $2.36 million, from the previous year, primarily due to raises for educators. Benefits increased by 6.5%, or approximately $1.75 million. Revenue from the state decreased by $1.8 million, or about 6%, even though the per-pupil adequacy grant increased to $4,182, 4.6% higher than in the 2023-2024 school year.
Last year, the district also received nearly $6 million in state aid, which was to be allocated as “property tax relief.” Only $500,000 was spent to lower the property tax increase, about half of which was budgeted before the state approved the increase. The remaining funds were placed in the district's trust fund. Technically speaking, it can be assumed that the $2.5 million in excess state aid originally budgeted for was a reduction in property taxes, keeping the tax rate lower than it should have been. Concord School District's taxes rose 19 cents per 1,000 last year to $13.61 per 1,000, the highest rate in more than 20 years.
However, most of the tax increases are not due to state appropriation fund cuts.
Despite increases in per-pupil state adequacy aid, school district enrollment has declined and state funding has declined. The district expects to have 57 fewer students next year. However, this is still only a reduction of about $238,000 to the district. This is also due to the small number of students.
Enrollment in the district plummeted by 660 students, from 4,610 in the 2014-2015 school year to 3,950 in the current school year. At the same time, the budget increased by approximately $25 million during the same period.
The budget proposes a $1.35 million increase in support services, an increase of nearly 30% from the previous year. The building and grounds budget increased by approximately $2.1 million, or 16.6%. Special education and student services also increased by $1.56 million, or nearly 6%.
Superintendent Kathleen Murphy said the increase in the SPED budget is due to several new out-of-district placements, although most of the department's students are educated within the district. There are no new hires in the department yet, she said. As for the safety budget, the district received $600,000 in two grants for one-time security and other school upgrades. Murphy said new positions in the building department budgeted for last year have not yet been filled. The high school's 200-day contract administrative services staff position has not been filled. Murphy said the district is not hiring any new tutors or paraprofessionals, she said. She said the board is also looking at other positions within the district.
Salary – Including step-ups and track raises and new positions, the new budget will be approximately $2.2 million. Benefit costs have increased by approximately $1.7 million. The bond budget, which includes new buses and air conditioning repairs at Concord High School and Beaver Meadow Elementary School, will be approximately $6.2 million. Replacing his HVAC throughout the district will cost about $20 million.
The district is also transferring $1.5 million, about $200,000 less than the proposed budget increase, to the Facilities Stabilization Fund as part of its “annual contribution to the Fund to Offset the Impact of Middle School Projects.” The account is expected to have approximately $16.2 million in fiscal year 2025.
Activists opposed to Eastside Middle join in
Concord residents concerned about a new middle school being built on the city's east side will also be present at the public hearing.
Concord Concerned Citizens (link here) is trying to organize residents to join in demanding transparency issues from the board and district. Although primarily motivated by a December 2023 vote to build a new middle school on the city's east side, where most of the new population growth was recorded in the 2020 Census, some lawmakers are wondering why the school district Some are wondering if it has budget and debt autonomy, something other school districts in the state or region don't have. Other members point to the need to merge the Merrimack Valley and Concord school districts to save money while paying the highest school property taxes in city history and the highest rates in 25 years.
Concerned Citizens of Concord also pointed to the city's infrastructure spending, noting that a major new school in East Concord could cost millions of dollars.
The group is appealing to its members to attend the hearing.
A petition to cancel the vote on the Broken Ground site and reconsider rebuilding or renovating the middle school at its current location was started in February and has gathered just under 1,000 signatures.
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Administrative consolidation proposal withdrawn
Mr Murphy recently withdrew a proposal to combine management of Broken Ground Elementary School and Mill Brook Elementary School after public and union opposition despite it being floated nearly 20 years ago.
There was a vacancy, so Murphy suggested saving money. The combined school would have created a situation where administrative costs were lower than all other independent primary schools, but with the current budget the administrative costs of the two independent schools are much higher than all other primary schools. It has become.
After the proposal was floated and a meeting was booked to discuss it, the Concord Education Association and others proposed a vote of no confidence in Murphy. The superintendent withdrew the idea in response to the outcry.
Combining the management of both schools was first proposed in 2006 during the primary school consolidation process due to the small size of Dame Primary School at the time, now a community center on Canterbury Road. Instead of adding to the elementary school on the broken ground, another school was built. At the moment, there are additional administrative costs, namely the lack of savings due to not merging elementary and primary schools, salaries due to the fact that in the last 12 years he has paid salaries to two principals instead of one principal. And benefits will probably cost him over $2 million.
Although the school board promised at the time to save millions of dollars by consolidating elementary schools, no savings were made.
Two other administrators in the district have also not been asked to respond, and at least one has resigned.
Budget proposals, presentation materials, and recordings of budget presentations are available on the district's website at sau8.org. Select the Budget icon or go to sau8.org/page/district-budget.
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