CLAREMONT — The School Board is scheduled to review three proposed budgets for the 2026-27 school year at its meeting Wednesday night.
One option proposes to operate the district with a single elementary school instead of the current two and move grades 7 and 8 to the high school. Under this “three school model,” all students in grades K-2 would go to one building, grades 3-6 would attend the middle school and grades 7-12 would be at the high school.
The “four-school model,” calls for two, grade-specific elementary schools, has grades 6-8 at the middle school and keeps 9-12 at Stevens High School. This model would result in a projected 2 to 2.5% increase in spending from this year’s budget, SAU 6 Business Administrator Matt Angell said at a Finance Committee meeting Friday.
The budget approved by voters last March was $42.9 million.
The third budget option will be the default budget, which is implemented if voters reject the proposed budget at the annual school meeting in March.
The budget proposals include full funding for athletics and other extracurricular activities, which the School Board cut in August after learning of a $5 million deficit and a severe cash flow problem, Angell said.
Fundraising has allowed high school athletics and other activities to continue this year. Neither the board nor administration has reported on how much money has been raised.
“There should be sufficient funding for athletics,” Angell said. “It is like this year never happened.”
The board’s finance subcommittee, of which School Board member Candy Crawford and School Board Chairwoman Heather Whitney are members, discussed the budget plans at two meetings last week.
Crawford said Angell is still finalizing each budget option and would not have completed the proposals until Tuesday afternoon.
Angell said his completion of the proposed budgets has been delayed by malfunctions in the system used to calculate New Hampshire retirement and health insurance costs.
Angell has budgeted for staffing of an alternative program for high school students, but not the facility because it was not clear where it will operate. The board had planned to move an alternative program for high school students to the former Masonic Temple on Maple Avenue and last January bought the building for $255,000. It then invested thousands more in renovations.
Now the finance committee plans to propose to the full board that the district sell the former temple building, pending voters approval in March, and house the alternative program in Bluff Elementary School. Bluff closed in October due to staffing issues.
To offset some of the cost to run the alternative program, Angell suggested leasing part of Bluff to a nonprofit created by the school district for special education services.
Wednesday’s meeting begins at 6:30 at the Sugar River Valley Technical Center.