New Offices, Budget, Teacher Contract on Warrant for Tonight

Tonight is the first of two annual deliberative sessions to discuss the warrants put forward by school and town officials for the 2013-14 fiscal year.

Tonight's session, the school district meeting, begins at 7 p.m. in the all purpose room at James Mastricola Upper Elementary School and the warrant includes three significant spending items.

Article 2 asks voters for $1,512,996 to build and equip a new special
services and central office consolidated building to replace the blue and green houses adjacent to Merrimack High School.

The houses, which have been in use by the school district for approximately 40 years were never designed to be used as offices and over the years have become crowded, run down and lack the privacy or efficient use of space to conduct day to day business, according to members of the school board, planning and building committee and the budget committee.

The town donated a parcel of land to the school district and the school district a parcel of land to the town in a sort of land swap, Superintendent Marge Chiafery. The proposed office would be built between the high school and Mastricola Elementary School and in addition to office space, there would be public meeting space available in the building.

This article is recommended by the school board unanimously and by the budget committee by a vote of 9-2. Because it's a bond item, it needs a three-fifths majority vote on April 9 to pass.

Read more on the building project here.

Article 6 asks voters to approve a collective bargaining agreement reached between the Merrimack School Board and the Merrimack Teachers Association (and raise the money in the first year's agreement) that would, as written, increase teacher salaries and benefits $768,400 in 2013-14, $556,937 in 2014-15 nd $460,288 in 2015-16.

The caveat is that the article is going to be amended on the floor by the school board to decrease the first year's amount by about $134, 000 due to three pending teacher retirements. The article, which was recommended by the school board prior to learning of these retirements, is not recommended by the budget committee because of the retirements.

The committee mostly abstained from approval or denial of the contract, in a vote of 0-1-10, knowing that the number was expected to change at the deliberative session.

The third major money article is the budget of $66,266,884. The $66.3 million budget's bottom line was increased from the school board's initial recommendation of a $65.9 million budget by the budget committee who opted to replace some of the money the school board cut from a roofing project at Merrimack High School.

The school board, during their meeting on Jan. 16, voted to cut a little more than a million dollars in money for the high school roof, which is part of the district's capital improvements plan, in favor of trying to level out some of the money being requested in Article 2.

The school board has closely followed the CIP in recent years in order to keep big-ticket spending on track, however, Facilities Director Tom Touseau told the board that he felt confident with the recent mild winters the high school roof could be put off for a short time without significant risk. The roof would be pushed down the road just four or five years until some bonds are paid off and asbestos mitigation projects completed, the board said.

The budget committee, however, voted to return a portion of that money back into the bottom line of the budget.

If voters disagree with the proposed budget, and defeat it on the ballot at the April 9 election, the school would operate in 2013-14 on the default budget of $66,713,981, which is $447,097 more than the recommended budget.

All of these articles, plus five more (which can be found by clicking the PDF above) are up for discussion at tonight's meeting. Motions can be made on the floor to amend the articles ahead of the April 9 vote. All but Article 2 need only a simple majority to pass.

Again, the meeting begins at 7 p.m. tonight in the APR at JMUES. All registered voters are encouraged to come discuss the issues. The town deliberative session is scheduled for next Wednesday, March 13, at the same time and place.

In addition to the articles on the ballot, on April 9, voters will elect community members to the district's various boards and committees. See who's running here.