CROYDON — Residents outraged after the 2022-23 school budget was slashed by more than half at Town Meeting earlier this month will get a chance to restore the money after the School Board on Tuesday scheduled another budget vote at 9 a.m. on May 7.

The revote was triggered by a petition calling for the restoration of the $1.7 million budget proposal that the school board presented to voters at Town Meeting on March 12.

A public hearing will be held at 6:30 p.m. on April 8, at Town Hall, in advance of the vote.

The May 7 meeting will be held in the dining hall at YMCA Camp Coniston, which was chosen because it can accommodate a large crowd.

For the revote to be binding, at least 50% of the town’s 565 registered voters must attend. The camp cafeteria was presented as one of the only facilities in town large enough to hold a group of that size.

If enough voters show up, a vote will be held to approve the $1,705,496 budget proposed to voters at Town Meeting, where an amendment from the floor reduced it to $800,000. Only about three dozen voters were in attendance.

More residents showed up to the school board meeting Tuesday night, when the revote dates were set and Camp Coniston was selected for a venue after other proposals were shot down — the firehouse is not big enough and the baseball field by the firehouse would likely be “a swamp” in early May. Splitting the vote across two locations would violate meeting laws, town business manager Beth Bierwirth informed attendees.

Lorraine Newcomb, registrar at Camp Coniston, suggested the camp’s dining hall.

When Newcomb said the camp’s director approved, a big cheer erupted.

In the meantime, the school board directed school staff to reduce the line items in the original budget by the same percentage across the board so that it totals $800,000. The school district has to file a 2022-23 budget plan with the state this week that conforms to the amount approved at Town Meeting.

After multiple contentious meetings in the weeks since Town Meeting, Tuesday night’s meeting was mostly placid. But some in the crowd of roughly 50 people grew agitated during the public comment period, when residents accused school board members of violating the state’s public meeting laws.

Copies of emails between Croydon board members and New Hampshire Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut circulated at Tuesday’s meeting indicated that board members Jody Underwood and Aaron McKeon and Nate Greene, a state education official, met as a group at the Department of Education without alerting voters.

Underwood admitted board members had violated the open meeting law, but she said it was unintentional and not an effort to hide anything.

“We were getting information from him,” Underwood said. “We weren’t deliberating.”

 

An audience member asked board member Kevin Morris, who was elected to the board at Town Meeting, if he was aware of his colleague’s Department of Education meeting, and he responded that he “didn’t know anything about it.”

Underwood quickly turned to Morris.

“We shared information with you, I’m pretty sure,” Underwood said.

Multiple times during the meeting, residents called for the resignation of Underwood, whose own husband, Ian Underwood, proposed the motion to slash the school budget on Town Meeting Day.

Kim McKinney had earlier asked Jody Underwood which was more important, low taxes or children’s education.

“My highest priority is educating children,” Underwood replied, adding, “I think choice is the best education.”

But McKinney wasn’t buying it.

“It’s obvious you do not have the best interest of our children,” McKinney said. “I would like to formally ask you to step down from your position.”

“Second!” a voice boomed from the back of the room, which erupted in cheers.

“Thank you for your comment,” Underwood said.

CORRECTION: Nate Greene is the administrator of the Bureau of Educational Opportunities at the state Department of Education. Greene was misidentified in an earlier version of this story.