by ConVal School Board Member Janine Lesser
Springtime brings new life back to us here in the Northeast — and time to vote on a new school budget. On March 10th, voters in the nine communities of the ConVal School District will vote on the warrant that dictates the school district budget. As we prepare to think about this annual decision, it’s always important to consider what’s at stake.
The nine communities are justly proud of the education that they have been able to provide for families who live in the ConVal District. The administration and school board work hard to look to the future and ensure we are preparing our students to work and thrive, and keep New Hampshire growing and healthy — a state where the children we are educating will be proud to live and raise their own families.
What does it take to ensure these opportunities continue? A good and fair budget, for one, that carefully manages resources raised by taxation against the diverse needs of the nine towns; and most importantly, a belief that we are making an investment in our communities, our families, our children, together. It is not an easy decision for many of us, as it can involve some considerable sacrifice when it comes to the tax bill.
The administration and school board regularly struggle with the complexity of running the district. We want to make sure that your questions are answered. The Budget and Property Committee developed a comprehensive explanation of how the budget is developed, how the budget translates to your tax bill. ”A School Budget Primer: Understanding School Budget Preparation, Methodology and the Impact on Property Taxes” was distributed at the first Deliberative Session on February 4th. The primer also reviews the 2020-21 warrant articles and explains the school board’s position on those articles and can be found on the ConVal website within the Budget Digest Resource page. You can also click the banner at the top of the ConVal School District website which directs you to the budget information.
If you have questions that aren’t answered on the website, please contact your school board representative, whose contact information is available on the website as well. We hope that you will vote “yes” on the operating budget, and the recommended articles.
You will also receive a flyer in the mail that explains the warrant and its articles. It will direct you to the ConVal website for budget information. It is our intention to be as transparent as possible, and provide the information that will help you understand the district operations. You can find all ConVal School District budget information here.
Default budgets are implemented when the proposed operating budget fails to win voter approval. Before you vote, here are some facts to consider about the ConVal budget:
• For the past eight years, ConVal administration and Board have held the operating budget to 1% annual increases, sometimes less than .5%. This was due to a variety of cost-saving measures: changing health insurance plans, cost-sharing the health insurance with district staff, postponing capital improvements (high school parking lot!!!), using trust funds to cover what would normally appear in the budget, staff decreases, redistributing staff responsibilities. Last year was the exception, when a combination of reduced state funding and increased mandatory expenditures increased the operating budget by 1.8%. This year is another increase: 2.23%. This increase in the 2020-21 operating budget is due primarily to the need for long-deferred capital improvements and the second year of the teacher contract — which we support and believe to be necessary and fair.
• At the same time, the administration and Board managed to keep the operating budget increase to a minimum in past years, the budget met its contractual obligations, including transportation, new teacher contracts; continued to ensure student safety and excellence in education the taxpayers count on by implementing security measures, continuing with curriculum review, professional development and implementation, implementation of ever-growing state and federal statutory requirements, and finally, ever-decreasing local state education investment. The state has recently convened an education funding task force, partly due to the will of our legislature, and partly due to several school districts’ lawsuit (one of whom is ConVal). The past year was a single year of some funding relief, which in the ConVal district went back to the nine communities. This should be reflected in your tax bill.
• When you see the difference between the operating budget and the increase in your education property tax — it is primarily due to decreased enrollment due to our local demographics, and the shrinking state funds. What the state chooses not to pay, the local taxpayer must make up. Please consider the budget-cutting that has gone on for the last five years in the interest of keeping your property tax increase to a minimum — and understand the current increases in that light: there are now no more places to cut. The 2.23 % increase in the operating budget reflects the Board and the administration’s effort to keep the district moving forward towards its goals of excellence for every child, and fiscal responsibility.
If the budget fails, we must implement a default budget. When it comes to the default budget, the biggest problem is the lack of places to go to cut. Everything that could be cut, that would not significantly affect the education our district children receive, has been cut in previous years. (This is now the new normal.) The default budget will require $1,422,487 in cuts to the 2020-21 budget.
In anticipation of this possible event, the Board requested the administration to develop a list of possible cuts. The administration offered this list in a series of five tiers: the first tier being the farthest from student impact on education to the closest and most impactful in tier five. The reality is that in order to meet the $1.5 million in cuts, we will have to go deep into tier four, and even some cuts from tier five.
If the default budget must go into place, the Board will work with the administration to identify the list of items selected for cuts from the 2020-2021 budget, and these will be eliminated before the year begins.
We hope you will vote to support the school budget. Thank you.