CLAREMONT — After cutting $1.6 million from its original proposal, the School Board voted 4-3 to recommend a $42.9 million budget to voters at the Feb. 7 deliberative session.
The budget, referred to as the “align” model, would make the two elementary schools grade specific and bring spending down about 0.5% below the current budget of $43.1 million, likely avoiding an increase in the school tax rate.
The adopted budget would make one elementary school, either Maple Avenue or Disnard, for grades preK-2 and the other for grades 3-5.
At Wednesday’s School Board meeting, Chairwoman Heather Whitney proposed an amendment to the $44.8 million budget presented at a public hearing Tuesday. She said her proposal addressed the concerns of taxpayers while preserving the district’s academic priorities.
The amendment eliminated 10 non-teaching positions that are budgeted but currently vacant. These included two instructional coaches and six interventionists. Those accounted for about half of the total budget reduction.
The other roughly $865,000 in cuts will be determined later, after a budget is approved at the March 10 annual school meeting vote.
Board member Michael Petrin, who voted for the amended budget along with Whitney, Sprague and William Madden, said voters sent a clear message on the two budget plans at Tuesday’s public hearing .
“We heard loud and clear last night that they are not tolerating a tax increase,” Petrin said.
A second budget proposal of $46.2 million, also presented at the public hearing, would leave the current K-5 alignment at each school in place. Board member Loren Howard wanted to propose amendments to that budget but after the board voted on Whitney’s proposal, it ended the discussion.
None of the other board members expressed any interest in pursuing that proposal because of the cost. At previous meetings, several teachers and parents urged the board to stay with the K-5 model for another year because there has been enough disruption with the closing of Bluff Elementary School in September.
Howard, along with Candy Crawford and Arlene Hawkins voted against the amended budget.
Crawford said board members have repeatedly sought cuts from the administration and opposed Whitney’s eleventh hour amendment with no input from other board members.
“All of a sudden, in 24 hours, to find $865,000 is pretty unrealistic,” Crawford said.
Before the board voted, interim business administrator Matt Angell said he needed to complete a form (MS-26) with budget line items by Monday so the board would need to decide where the cuts would come from.
This caused some confusion as both Whitney and board member Frank Sprague said in the past the board has given the administration a bottom line number and found reductions later. But Angell reiterated several times he needed to have budget line items.
Ultimately, the board agreed to put the figure for athletics at $1 with the understanding they would be fully funded at $865,000. Sprague said the board could find other “efficiencies” to fund athletics.
“We can move money around with the understanding they (athletics) would be fully funded,” Sprague said.
When Whitney proposed her amendment, she said she initially thought that putting athletics in a separate warrant article would be the right approach, but later decided it was not fair to residents.
She said putting voters in an “untenable and unfair position” of having to choose between their children or grandchildren playing sports or avoiding a tax increase.
“That is unconscionable,” Whitney said.
For her part, Crawford said she would support a separate warrant article on athletics.
“Athletics are a choice and it can be their choice (whether to support them),” Crawford said.
Hanging over the budget decision and the district’s ongoing financial crisis, which came to light in August when the board announced a $5 million deficit, is a budget cap warrant article that was submitted by petition. The proposed cap would be calculated based on per pupil spending and enrollment tied to the increase in the consumer price index.
Angell said at the public hearing that if the cap is approved by voters as outlined in state law, it would reduce the 2027-28 budget to about $35 million or $9 million less than the 2025-26 budget, possibly necessitating the closing of the tech center and elementary schools.
“The tax cap is real, not just talk,” Petrin said, adding that failing to listen to voters’ concerns over taxes is “putting the district in jeopardy.”
The board has said it will hold a public hearing on the budget cap article after the deliberative session, but it has yet to be scheduled.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.