Building, Budget, Bargaining Agreement Move to Ballot

A $1.5 million plan for a new central SAU and Special Services offices will go onto the April 9 ballot as recommended by the School Board and Budget Committee after is was presented and passed unaltered at Wednesday night's school deliberative session.

The proposal would move the two staffs out of the three-bedroom ranch homes they've been occupying as office space for the last 40 or so years. The homes Stan Heinrich called “an embarrassment” to the district.

Heinrich, a member of the Planning and Building Committee and the Budget Committee, was one of only two people other than the School Board Chairman and Planning and Building Committee Chairman, to speak to the article during the annual meeting, which was attended by only 65 voters and lasted just under an hour.

“Let's put the people who are in charge of our children and of an excess of 60 million dollars in a decent place to work out of,” Heinrich said.

Rich Hendricks, chairman of the Planning and Building Committee gave a short overview of the problems that plague the green house (the SAU offices) and the blue house (the Special Services offices) which include lack of privacy and confidentiality, problems like mold, water in the basements and lack of space, to name the most pressing issues.

Hendricks said the committee looked at a number of options including leasing existing space in town, buying existing space, using portable buildings, which were rule out as inadvisable early on, and new construction, renovating space at James Mastricola Upper Elementary School and a combination of both.

The one that made the most economic sense was the option to build on an acre parcel of land donated to the district by the town, between Mastricola Elementary School and Merrimack High School, pictured above.

The proposed building would include about 8,800 square feet of office and meeting space on the main level and a 2,100 square foot basement to be used for storage.

The total cost of the building, $1,512,966 would cover construction and equipping the building. The first year's interest rate on the bond, which would be raised in 2013-14 is $30,315, which works out to about a penny per thousand on the tax rate, according to school board chairman Chris Ortega.

The most expensive year of payments on the 10-year bond payoff is year two, which comes to $206,505.

Ortega, in answering a question from Tim Tenhave, said the district would save $161,484 in interest payments by paying it off in 10 years versus 15 years, and that by paying it off in 15 years, the principal and interest payment in year two would be $161,050, which is about $45,000 less. Ortega said it would be only about a penny difference on the tax rate in year two to pay it off in 15 years.

The article was moved to the warrant unchanged.

Articles 3, 4, 5, 7 and Article 8 – the $66.3 million proposed budget for 2013-14 – all moved to the ballot without discussion. The budget includes an addition of $385,920 for a smaller portion of the high school roof to be added back into the budget by the Budget Committee. The roof project was completely eliminated by the school board for the 2013-14 budget in favor of reducing the budget to make up for the SAU building.

Article 6 the teacher contract was amended as was expected, by $134,647 in the first year of the contract to take into consideration money that was not factored in from three teachers who will be retiring.

According to School Board member Shannon Barnes, during contract negotiations, they examined nearby schools in the south central area of New Hampshire where Merrimack teachers might be inclined to look for better paying job and found that Merrimack “not really as competitive as our neighbors.”

She said Merrimack's teacher salaries fall between $3,000 and $6,000 below comparable districts, putting the district at risk for losing teachers to neighboring communities.

Budget committee member Gary Krupp, who is running against Barnes and Ortega for one of two seats on the School Board, asked whether the pay table in the MTA contract would be available for the public to see before voting for the raises. He suggested that if the voters are going to pay $1.66 million in raises over the next three years, they should be assured the raises are going to help fix some of the disparities that school board wanted to match with other districts.

Barnes said the document should be available to people who request it, but that the document is owned as it has been historically by the MTA. Further, she said the voters vote on a bottom line, not individual salaries in good faith that the MTA is representing the union in a way that would help attract, retain and grow their membership. Barnes added that even with the $1.66 million in raises, it doesn't bring the district's lower tiered educators in line with neighboring districts because they are getting raises, too, at similar percentages, which makes Merrimack remain competitive but still below the average nearby.

“I think the MTA is a name of an organization. It's filled with teachers who are passionate about what they do. They come to school every day just like anyone in this district sitting here as an elected official, sitting in the administration offices as leaders of those buildings and everyone in those building is in it to educate children, the are not in it to say I won a deal,” Barnes said.

The article was placed on the warrant as amended to make up for the $134,000 reduction.

All seven articles on the ballot, as well as candidates for school district offices, will be voted on during the annual election on April 9. Voters will cast their ballots in the All-Purpose Room at JMUES between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.

The town deliberative session is scheduled for Wenesday, March 13, at 7 p.m. in the JMUES APR.