CLAREMONT — A spending cap on next year’s school district budget will be decided by voters on the March 10 ballot after an amendment to significantly increase per pupil spending and effectively eliminate the cap was defeated at Saturday’s deliberative session in the Stevens High School auditorium.
If voters approve the cap, the limit on the School Board’s budget proposal next March for 2027-28 would be calculated using the per pupil cost for the 2025-26 fiscal year multiplied by the average daily enrollment of the previous October as a baseline amount. The board’s recommended budget could not increase above that amount by more than the rate of inflation for the region. A 60% majority is required for passage of the cap.
Resident Tom Luther, who helped draft the article, called it a “growth cap.”
“The number will go up every year with inflation,” he said.
Those gathered at the four-hour deliberative session opted to send the board’s proposed budget for next year to voters on March 10. Also on the ballot will be the sale of two district-owned buildings and the issue of open enrollment.
Resident Emily Sandblade led the petition drive to get the spending cap article on the warrant. She said in the last 10 years per pupil spending in the city has increased 41% and tax increases over that period have hit everyone from retirees, to renters, blue collar families, and widows and widowers, all of whom are being forced to consider leaving.
“It is a slow, quiet eviction for the people who live in and built Claremont,” Sandblade said.
“Real reform is long overdue,” she said. “As citizens we need to see more responsibility, more focus on core education goals, more transparency and more community involvement. Financial due diligence must become a driving factor in the budget process, not an afterthought.”
Board member Frank Sprague, who is running for reelection to the board, said he understands voters have lost confidence in the board after the revelation last August of a $5 million budget deficit in the current year but he said the board has become more fiscally responsible as evidenced by this year’s proposed budget.
“The board did hear you,” Sprague said. “After the (Jan. 20 budget) public hearing we brought in a budget that is a reduction from this year.”
The proposed $42.9 million budget, which would not be impacted by the decision on the spending cap, is $220,000 less than the budget approved for this year. It would reduce the school tax rate by an estimated 18 cents to $17.27 per $1,0000 in assessed valuation.
No one commented for or against the budget on Saturday.
The default budget is $44.4 million with a $1.23 tax increase.
Sprague and others said that because the administration has had to make significant cuts in the current budget in an effort to erase the deficit, the spending cap for 2027-28 would be applied to an artificially low budget number and would require about $9 million in cuts.
“That is unsustainable,” Sprague said. “It would gut the district.”
Interim Business Administrator Matt Angell did not say how much the budget is for the current year, but told residents if he has to propose a $9 million reduction in the budget, he would recommend significant cuts including closing the tech center, the two elementary schools and eliminating all funding for athletics.
“Right now is the wrong time,” Sprague said. “The number does not represent what the budget is.”
Sandblade said the School Board can propose a budget that exceeds the cap but it would need a 60% majority of voters to override it.
Former School Board member Brian Rapp, also a candidate for the School Board, agreed with Sprague that the figure the 2027-28 budget will be based on does not accurately reflect the district’s needs and overrides are rare.
“It is very difficult to override,” Rapp said. “We are hamstringing ourselves.”
An amendment, proposed by resident Amanda Barton, would have inserted per pupil spending of no more than $50,000 in the article’s wording. Claremont now spends about $26,000 per pupil.
“I am not changing the intent of the budget cap,” Barton said. “I think the intent is still there. It just adds a per pupil cost.”
But several called for the amendment to be defeated.
“Setting a dollar amount of $50,000 is really an attempt to gut the article,” said resident Luke Diamond before the vote.
City Councilor and Republican state Rep. Wayne Hemingway said raising the per pupil amount to $50,000 would just give the School Board the opportunity to spend more.
“If you raise it to $50,000, they will spend it,” Hemingway said. “It is a starting cap to tax the taxpayer out of the city.”
The amendment lost 121-80.
Also during the deliberative session, residents amended two articles to authorize the School Board to sell Bluff Elementary School, which closed at the start of the school year, and the former Masonic Lodge on Maple Avenue.
The option of leasing the buildings was removed from the articles’ wording in two amendments proposed by resident Kevin Tyson and approved by voters. Supporters of the sell-only option said the district should not have the additional work of managing a tenant and that selling the properties would put them back on the tax roll.
“I don’t feel the district needs to be in the landlord business,” said resident Jason Benware about the Bluff School. “It is a headache with a ton of liability. The only true option is to get it out from under us.
“Even if we sell it for less than its worth, it goes on the tax rolls. We get the tax revenue for years to come.”
There was agreement that selling both buildings would be the best outcome, but some argued the board should have the option to lease and earn some revenue to cover the cost to maintain the properties while it seeks a buyer.
“Selling is great but if we cannot sell we are on the hook for those costs with no option to make money on the building,” said City Councilor Chris Cogswell. “I don’t see how that benefits the taxpayers.”
Also debated was open enrollment, which the School Board is proposing Claremont adopt. Under the proposal, the district would not allow any student to leave the district but would accept up to 5% of the current Claremont enrollment. The law requires the sending district to pay most of the per pupil cost of the student who leaves his or her home district.
Board member Candace Crawford said it is a “defensive mechanism” so the district does not lose students while also paying for their education in another district.
“It limits the financial liability for which the district has no control and no way to plan ahead,” Crawford said.
A few residents said parents should have the option to choose where their child gets an education, but others did not like the idea of Claremont paying to educate a student who attends another district.
Cogswell said he has had enough of seeing money leave Claremont.
“If you want Claremont to be better, then stay here and fight for it,” Cogswell said. “Or move. You have that right.”
Voting on the school district ballot is Tuesday, March 10 from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the middle school for Wards I and II and Disnard Elementary School for Ward III.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com