School Board to Vote 2013-14 Budget Tonight

The Merrimack School Board will meet tonight to make recommendations on a $67.3 million proposed budget for the 2013-14 school year.

The board has held twice a week budget sessions this month to talk about the various schools and departmental proposals and last Wednesday voted to eliminate the entire proposed roof replacement at the high school in an effort to keep spending down.

The removal of the roof project will cut $1,024,300 from that $67.3 million proposal.

When the board met with facilities Director Tom Touseau earlier this month, he told the board that due to some milder winters in the last couple years, the roof should have a longer life expectancy than thought when the initial district-wide roof replacement schedule was put together.

The board had a handful of options for how they could reduce the budget when it came to the high school roof, including removing the whole project, a third of the project or two-thirds of it.

Before voting 4-1 to remove the entire project from the budget, Chairman Chris Ortega made a motion to remove a third of the project but do the other two-thirds.

“I would rather see us do at least some of the roof rather than no roof,” Ortega said, not wanting to kick the can further down the road to another school board.

School Board member Shannon Barnes pointed out that moving the roof budget was the best was to push toward a level-funded budget from 2012-13 and it wouldn't be pushed too far down the road, as some bonded debt and asbestos abatement projects were coming to an end.

“There is going to be a holiday from some of those bigger numbers sooner than later,” Barnes said.

Barnes said Touseau had been strong enough in his conviction telling them they could get by without replacing the roof that she was opting for no roof instead of some roof.

Ortega's motion failed 1-4 with Ortega the only vote in favor. Barnes motion to remove the million-dollar project altogether from the 2013-14 budget passed 4-1, with Ortega dissenting.

Also discussed during the last hearing was what to do with a French teacher position that was among 6.5 teacher positions on the chopping block for next year.

Earlier in the week, members of the community spoke in favor of retaining the position, which was being cut due to a reported decline in interest in the French program at Merrimack High School.

Assistant Superintendent Mark McLaughlin said it is not the program in it's entirety that sees a lack of interest but rather a decline from year to year in the students who stick with it. Advanced French classes like French 4 and 5 have less than 20 students each in the programs.

The board heard from students and parents at the beginning of the week who asked to keep the position in the budget.

On Wednesday, McLaughlin presented an option that would return a part-time French position to next year's budget.

“I think part-time is a compromise. It’s better than what we had coming into this with a full position gone,” Barnes said. “...We as a board, we'll do what we got to do to get a level funded budget, don't get us wrong, that was the majority request of you, but we have to look at the consequences, and I say it like 100 times every budget cycle: consequences.”

Barnes said she thought part-time replacement was the least she'd do, but she'd consider adding back a full position as well.

Barnes initially made a motion at the meeting to replace the full-time position for $ 70,014.47 back into the budget, but withdrew the motion after her fellow board members said they'd like until tonight to mull it over.

Former School Board Chairwoman Jody Vaillancourt, who led the charge on Monday for replacement of the position thanked the board at the end of the meeting for revisiting it.

Vaillancourt said she would be OK with the part-time compromise, but suggested they'd be cutting out any room for flexibility if there was a swell in interest in French next year.

The board will take the issue up again tonight.

Other decisions made at the last hearing was to add $56,700 back into the budget for roof repairs at the special services building, which suffered serious damage when half the roof came off during Hurricane Sandy, and is also running into issues with water damage.

The board also removed $284,560 from the health insurance account and $70,086 from dental as the district has $354,000 coming back to it from money that had not been returned as surplus from the Local Government Center in recent years. It is part of a $50 million package the LGC was ordered to return to member towns and school districts.

And the board removed two full-time psychologists from the elementary level, opting to contract out the services for approximately $100,000, saving the district $218,000 in the transaction.

The board will meet tonight at 7:30 p.m. in the Merrimack High School cafeteria to vote on a recommended budget