Franklin school officials presented a budget to the city council that was even higher than an earlier draft with a $1.3 million spending gap.
The Franklin School Board proposed a $16.17 million 2016-17 budget at Tuesday evening’s budget workshop meeting. Franklin School District Superintendent Daniel Legallo said Wednesday the extra $400,000 – in technology, books and school supplies costs – was added to the existing $15.76 million draft budget during the school board’s meeting Monday night.
“It went back to the original amount before we started cutting the budget,” said Legallo. That extra money, he added, are needed to properly run the district.
Due to cuts in state adequacy aid, food sales and tuitioned students – including the loss of children from Hill, which voted during their annual school meeting to send their students to Newfound – as well as a proposed 6.4 percent budget increase, Franklin School district is facing a significant funding gap.
Revenues are projected at just $14.48 million, creating a $1.7 million deficit. If the money can’t be made up, more than 20 teaching and support staff positions are poised to be cut from the district. More than 100 people showed up to the June Franklin City Council meeting last week to protest the cuts.
Presented with the new, higher school district budget Tuesday, Franklin City Manager Elizabeth Dragon said there was some surprise among city councilors.
That amount, she said, “was out of reach” for the city. The city has a tax cap and a number of properties were seized for unpaid taxes at the most recent city council meeting.
“It’s not realistic,” Dragon said of the $1.7 million gap.
She added that during its presentation Tuesday, the school board didn’t include the $380,000 of savings found during a recent workshop meeting.
“They didn’t get into a lot of detail – it was just an overview,” Dragon said. “Basically it was just a conversation about the future.”
Moving forward, both Legallo and Dragon said they felt the city council and school board needed to meet and work through the budget. A workshop meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Monday at the Franklin Opera House.
There, Dragon said, the two groups will “really dive into the numbers and really talk about we can do . . .we need to come up with some solutions.”
Legallo agreed.
“I think the best thing is to have everyone sit down together and figure it out,” he said. “We’ll go from there.”
(Elodie Reed can be reached at 369-3306, ereed@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @elodie_reed.)