LEBANON — Dan Mielcarz’ vocation is in the field of science, yet on Saturday he pointed to the value of performance arts during the Lebanon School District’s proposed budget and warrant articles deliberations.
Mielcarz raised one of the few talking points in a session that lasted under 90 minutes and attracted about 25 residents to Lebanon Middle School. He spoke in support of Article 3, which on March 12 will ask voters if the district should borrow $9.4 million to build a new auditorium at Lebanon High that would serve the entire district.
Currently, some student performing arts productions are staged at Lebanon Opera House and other alternative venues.
“I’m a working scientist, but I can’t tell you how much my experience in the performance arts helped my overall educational experience,” said Mielcarz, who went to high school in Concord and is now a research scientist at Norris Cotton Cancer Center-based DartLab. “I was in the marching band and the concert band and I’m really grateful for those experiences. When I was at Concord, there was a construction project for a new band room, and it made a world of difference, to have more space and not be tripping over each other with our instruments.”
The auditorium issue proved contentious last year when it was lumped in with an ultimately unsuccessful article for a $28.9 million bond, which also aimed to improve entryways, classrooms and administrative spaces at Lebanon High, Hanover Street School and Mount Lebanon School. The warrant was voted down last March, 820-768, following controversy surrounding the auditorium component.
The modernization project is a separate, $19.9 million warrant this year, $10.3 million of which would be used for a new entrance, library, playground, cafeteria, office space and classrooms at Hanover Street School, which currently shares a cafeteria with Lebanon High. About $5.6 million would be used for Lebanon High renovations and infrastructure improvements such as pavement, lighting, curbing and drainage at the Lebanon High/Hanover Street School campus, according to a presentation given Saturday by district Superintendent Joanne Roberts, while another $1.8 million would go toward a new multi-purpose room, kitchen, entryway, office space and bus drop-off area at Mount Lebanon School.
If both the modernization and auditorium articles pass along with the district’s proposed $43.77 million budget, school officials have predicted a 59-cent tax increase, which would amount to an additional $147.50 for a homeowner with a property valued at $250,000.
The budget alone is a 1.1 percent increase from this year’s total, or an approximately $65 increase for a home valued at $250,000. No discussion occurred Saturday regarding the budget, whose increase is impacted in part by increases in health care coverage.
While school officials are hopeful that breaking up the modernization and bond articles will help garner support for at least one of the projects, district chair Adam Nemeroff had expected more discourse on the matter on Saturday, particularly in light of the last year’s debates surrounding the auditorium.
“To be honest, I wish we had a bit more of a fuller room,” Nemeroff said after moderator Gary Mayo had adjourned the meeting. “We know it’s something the community has grappled with in the past, and we are here to answer their questions and listen to feedback.”
Other articles presented included contract agreements with the Lebanon Education Association and Lebanon Secretaries Association that would increase salaries and benefits, and to discontinue a Capital Reserve Fund, with an estimated $141,000 to be transferred to the District’s General Fund.
Articles in March will also ask voters if the district should add up to $400,000 in future surplus funding to new construction and renovation fund, and to add up to $300,000 to a special education trust fund.
Both sums would come after up to $1 million in surplus funding would be used to reduce the school tax rate.
Jared Pendak can be reached at jpendak@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.