The previous article in this series on District Finances discussed the three options for disposition of the remaining Fund Balance at the end of any given fiscal year:
Appropriations to Trust Funds (“Transfer”)
Retention of unassigned funds (“Retain”)
Returned to the taxpayers when they are utilized by the Department of Revenue Administration in calculating the local education tax rate (reduction of District Tax Assessment) for the following fiscal year (“Return”).
Article 3 of this series discussed NH Emergency Order 38 which allowed the District to “retain” a portion of the FY19-20 unused funds to meet the unanticipated costs associated with COVID. That was a helpful albeit temporary solution.
This article will discuss proposed Warrant Article 12 – “Fund Balance Retention” which would establish a contingency fund that could be used – indefinitely – to meet the costs of unanticipated expenses that arise during the year.
For a detailed treatment of the topic, including a flowchart, please see this .pdf file.
Due to weather concerns, the deliberative session has been moved from Tuesday, February 2, 2021 to Wednesday, February 3rd, 2021 at 6 PM in the gymnasium at ConVal Regional High School.
This article will address Warrant Articles 2 and 3 which are associated the proposed extension of the contract between the School Board and the Contoocook Valley Education Association (CVEA).
CVEA is the exclusive representative of district employees in the Collective Bargaining Unit which includes district teachers, specialized service professionals and paraprofessionals. CVEA does not represents District supervisory or administrative staff.
The Board and CVEA appoint members to their respective negotiating teams which then conduct the negotiations - typically during the summer and fall prior to expiration of the contract term. The resulting agreement is subject to approval by the full membership of each respective organization. Following that approval, the Board and CVEA approved “Collective Bargaining Agreement” (CBA or contract) is subject to voter approval. Only then does it take effect.
Both the School Board and CVEA have voted on and approved the proposed contract extension that is the subject of Article 02.
Our last article was published in mid-December. It discussed the process and timeline followed to develop the school district budget which is subject to voter approval in March. A lot has happened since then:
The School Board has reviewed and modified the budget as submitted by the administration
The proposed budget was presented at a Public Hearing on January 12th
The Board voted to approve the proposed budget and the default budget on January 22nd
The Warrant Articles for the March 9th ballot were finalized and posted on January 25th
Next up:
District Meeting Part 1 - Deliberative Session at CVHS (Gym) February 2, 2021 6:00 PM
District Meeting Part 2 - Voting (in Individual Towns) March 9, 2021
At the Deliberative Session, all proposed Warrant Articles will be presented and attendees will have an opportunity to ask questions about any of them. Voters can also propose amendments and, if approved by voters in attendance, the amended Warrant Articles will be included on the final ballots.
The proposed March 2021 District Ballot will include the following Warrant Articles:
Operating Budget – School District SB2
Accept the Collective Bargaining Agreement
Special Meeting for Defeated/Amended Collective Bargaining Agreement
Appropriate to Special Education Reserve Trust Fund from Fund Balance
Appropriate to Building Capital Reserve Fund from Fund Balance
Appropriate to Energy Trust Fund from Fund Balance
Appropriate to Equipment Trust Fund from Fund Balance
Appropriate to Athletic Trust Fund from Fund Balance
Appropriate to Building Capital Reserve Fund from Fund Balance
Accept Reports of Agents and Auditors
School Board Salaries
Fund Balance Retention
School Board Members
It may be convenient to think about these in groups in terms of what they impact:
FY2021-22 Gross Budget (Articles 1 and 2)
District Trust Funds and Fund Balance (Articles 4 to 9 and 12)
Administrative (Articles 3, 10, 11, and 13)
The next three articles in this series will cover the following topics and will be posted on the School Board website schoolboard.convalsd.net.
Collective Bargaining Agreement (Warrant Articles 2 and 3)
District Trust Funds and Fund Balance (Warrant Articles 4 through 9 and 12)
The Contoocook Valley School Board is urging Gov. Chris Sununu to re-prioritize K-12 educators and front-line staff from Phase 2a to Phase 1b of the state's COVID-19 vaccination plan.
The board issued a letter to Gov. Sununu Friday outlining the basis of its request.
Phase 1 of the New Hampshire COVID-19 Vaccination Allocation Plan began in December 2020 and will continue into March. Groups specified as part of Phase 1b - including people aged 65 and older, those medically vulnerable at significantly higher risk and family caregivers of those persons, residents and staff of residential facilities for persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities, corrections officers and staff, and first responders and healthcare workers not already vaccinated - became eligible to schedule a vaccination on Friday.
Through the state’s current plan, K-12 school and childcare staff will be eligible as part of Phase 2a, which is expected to begin in March and continue into May.
In the letter, the board pointed to the need to keep K-12 staff healthy to ensure adequate staffing and minimize the potential for disruptions to face-to-face instruction, resulting in improved student outcomes.
Below is the letter in full:
Dear Governor Sununu:
Thank you for your service to the citizens of New Hampshire during the incredibly challenging events of the past year. Among the many critical and difficult decisions you have had to make during this time is prioritizing vaccination eligibility. You have indicated that you intend to prioritize those you deem most vulnerable.
Throughout the fall and winter, you have repeatedly expressed your desire that schools remain open for face-to-face instruction, a desire we share and have worked hard to make possible. Furthermore, you have continually emphasized the importance of providing families with flexibility during these difficult times, another position we whole-heartedly support.
The ConVal School District has gone to extraordinary lengths to support these shared priorities. Our students were in school, in person, from the beginning of the school year until Thanksgiving. After a period of pre-planned remote instruction around holiday travel periods, they are once again in their classrooms.
Keeping schools open for face-to-face instruction requires adequate numbers of healthy teachers and other staff. Many school districts around the state have had to reduce face-to-face instruction due to staff shortages. At ConVal we have been fortunate, both in having low numbers of exposures resulting in quarantines, and more importantly in the willingness of our educators to return to their classrooms despite their understandable concerns about their health and that of their families.
In order to keep our educators and front-line staff healthy, and minimize the potential for disruptions to face-to-face instruction, we strongly encourage you to prioritize all K-12 teachers and other front-line employees and allow them to schedule vaccinations during Phase 1B. If you cannot support this request at this time, please consider allowing those educators and staff age 50 and over, and medically vulnerable educators and staff less than 50 years old, to be vaccinated in Phase 1B.
Taking this approach would support school districts in maintaining face-to-face instruction by ensuring adequate staffing levels, and improve student outcomes by providing students uninterrupted access to highly-trained and competent professional educators. Additionally, this approach would be consistent with your requirement that healthy young people not be vaccinated ahead of the most vulnerable members of our community.
Thank you for your consideration of this request, and for your continued service to the citizens of New Hampshire.
Sincerely,
Rich Cahoon, Chair For the Contoocook Valley School Board
As the current Strategic Plan for the ConVal School District near its end in June 2021, efforts are already underway to provide a new plan for the next five-year period which will end in 2026.
Since March, the District has been focused on adapting to the changes needed to continue to serve our students in the environment of COVID-19.
The Strategic Planning Committee has been meeting to formulate a framework for the development of a plan that will move ConVal through and past the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. With these additional exigencies in mind, this next plan will be very significant for students, staff, and the ConVal community as a whole.
For fuller details about the framework for the next strategic plan, please click here.
This post will address the process and the timeline that is being followed to develop the budget for the 2021-2022 school year which will impact final tax bills issued a year from now.
For a detailed discussion of the budget guidance, the budget process, and the announcement of the two District Meeting dates, please click here.
Each of the nine towns in the ConVal school district issues two tax bills every year.
In July, the preliminary tax bill is issued and in December the final tax bill is issued. The preliminary tax bill is based on the previous year's tax rates whereas the final December bill uses actual approved rates.
To learn in greater detail how the tax assessment is structured in the ConVal School District, please click this link.
"Unreserved Fund Balance" is an important portion in our budget to understand since it represents the amount "returned" to the taxpayers every year in the form of a reduction in tax assessments for the following year.
Unanticipated expenses associated with COVID-19 have reduced the amount available to be returned this year, and recent state guidance allows Districts to retain more of the unreserved fund balance than normally allowed.
This article explains the concept in greater detail and what it means for future budgets.
The previous article in this series on District Finances discussed the three options for disposition of the remaining Fund Balance at the end of any given fiscal year:
Appropriations to Trust Funds (“Transfer”)
Retention of unassigned funds (“Retain”)
Returned to the taxpayers when they are utilized by the Department of Revenue Administration in calculating the local education tax rate (reduction of District Tax Assessment) for the following fiscal year (“Return”).
Article 3 of this series discussed NH Emergency Order 38 which allowed the District to “retain” a portion of the FY19-20 unused funds to meet the unanticipated costs associated with COVID. That was a helpful albeit temporary solution.
This article will discuss proposed Warrant Article 12 – “Fund Balance Retention” which would establish a contingency fund that could be used – indefinitely – to meet the costs of unanticipated expenses that arise during the year.
For a detailed treatment of the topic, including a flowchart, please see this .pdf file.
The previous article in this series on District Finances discussed the three options for disposition of the remaining Fund Balance at the end of any given fiscal year:
Appropriations to Trust Funds (“Transfer”)
Retention of unassigned funds (“Retain”)
Returned to the taxpayers when they are utilized by the Department of Revenue Administration in calculating the local education tax rate (reduction of District Tax Assessment) for the following fiscal year (“Return”).
Due to weather concerns, the deliberative session has been moved from Tuesday, February 2, 2021 to Wednesday, February 3rd, 2021 at 6 PM in the gymnasium at ConVal Regional High School.
This article will address Warrant Articles 2 and 3 which are associated the proposed extension of the contract between the School Board and the Contoocook Valley Education Association (CVEA).
Our last article was published in mid-December. It discussed the process and timeline followed to develop the school district budget which is subject to voter approval in March.
The Contoocook Valley School Board is urging Gov. Chris Sununu to re-prioritize K-12 educators and front-line staff from Phase 2a to Phase 1b of the state’s COVID-19 vaccination plan.
As the current Strategic Plan for the ConVal School District near its end in June 2021, efforts are already underway to provide a new plan for the next five-year period which will end in 2026.
This post will address the process and the timeline that is being followed to develop the budget for the 2021-2022 school year which will impact final tax bills issued a year from now.