Claremont

The Claremont School Board, for the first time in a number of years, is in a position where painful cuts to the budget are not necessary. For the most part this is due to the tireless efforts of school boards, administrations and other elected officials from Claremont, Monadnock, Berlin, Pittsfield, Franklin, Keene, Manchester and many other communities applying pressure to our elected state officials to begin repair on a broken school funding system.

The New Hampshire House and Senate were able to negotiate substantial “one-time money” for many school districts. The intent of this money was to stop the bleeding caused by the systematic phasing out of stabilization funds, loss of building aid, cuts to special education aid and woefully inadequate funding by the state. Some have suggested that this is taxpayer money and it all should be returned to them. However, when Gov. Chris Sununu presented “the check,” he clearly stated that this money should be used to correct deferred maintenance and to repair damage to opportunities for student learning caused by ongoing budget cuts.

With this in mind, the warrant articles comprising the 2020-21 school budget were developed.

Article 2 covers the main budget. As we have done for the last several years, there was a line-by-line examination of the proposed budget by the budget subcommittee with all principals and directors. As in every year past, explanations were given and adjustments made when necessary, with a priority on needs vs. wants.

■ A new board subcommittee charged with capital improvements has spent the last year with maintenance director Steven Holt assessing building needs (especially roofs) and created an extensive, prioritized, needs-based database of maintenance, both deferred as well as anticipated.

■ Social studies and science positions at the middle school were restored. These were reduced a number of years ago due to a prior budget crisis.

■ A systematic approach to “efficiencies,” including the elimination of unfilled paraeducator positions and redundancies at the SAU level, was taken that resulted in savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

■ The main budget contains funding for a negotiated teachers contract, with the main goal to be competitive in pay with surrounding districts, allowing Claremont to attract and retain quality teachers.

■ Continued development of “in-house” programming to provide opportunities to our most challenging students, allowing those students to remain in Claremont and saving thousands of dollars in tuition and busing costs. The long-term goal is to generate tuition income by accepting students from neighboring communities, as well as meeting the needs of a more substantial portion of Claremont students in, or destined for, placement out of district.

Articles 3, 4 and 5 relate to negotiated contracts with secretaries, paraeducators, and maintenance and transportation personnel. These negotiations resulted in pay raises for these associations. The goal of the School Board was to get all groups to agree to a change in health insurance, which saves taxpayers and employees substantially on health insurance benefit premiums.

Articles 6 and 7 concern school buses and infrastructure. A responsible plan for the use of one-time money makes sense. This money will be placed in trust for use at the discretion of the School Board to plan for the structured and responsible replacement of an aging bus fleet and money for planned and unplanned repairs of facilities. These trusts will ensure that no warrants for buses or maintenance will appear on ballots for a period of three to five years. This is sound fiscal management, not a frivolous use of taxpayer money.

A “no” vote on articles 2, 6 or 7 would result in a substantial tax reduction. That is not in question. But it would be for the 2020-2021 school year only. It is still necessary to provide opportunities for students, pay our employees, and repair and replace our assets. Tax relief would be short-lived as substantial increases in the next several years would occur as the issues that these articles propose to address are not going away.

A “no” vote on articles 3, 4 or 5 would prove costly as employees would keep their prohibitively expensive Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance.

The Claremont School Board asks that the school budget be supported in its entirety. In spite of the ambitious nature of this year’s budget, it does represent a 56 cent decrease when compared to the 2019-20 budget.

Frank W. Sprague chairs the Claremont School Board.