Franklin is looking at a $1.1 million budget gap for its school district and a potential layoff of 15 to 20 teachers.
This is the second year in a row Franklin School District has faced drastic cuts, and the struggle isn’t lost on students, either. On a Friday morning at the city’s high school, two students came to Diane Cummings at the school’s front desk to complain about the heat. It was in the 30s outside, and yet the windows were open in the classroom to try and reduce the sweltering temperatures.
“It’s crazy, it’s just all going out the window,” a young man told Cummings about the blasting heat. “That’s something we just can’t afford in this school.”
At a recent school board budget presentation, teachers and parents expressed their frustrations, too: an eighth-grade teacher watching her students apply to private school for more opportunities; the loss of good teachers looking for more job security; the “depressing” look of the Franklin High School gymnasium.
Harder to identify, though, is how to fix the problem.
It has inspired remarkable resourcefulness at places like Franklin High School. Beginning last fall, student leaders, staff and community members contributed to “Karma Korner,” an old eighth-grade classroom that now looks like a thrift-shop.
Winter coats, laundry detergent, socks and deodorant are all popular items among students. They can also access food and snacks down in the front office.
“We have a lot of kids here who couch surf,” FHS Principal Carrie Charette said. “We need to have this space for them so they can get what they need.”
But a big-picture solution remains elusive – Franklin’s funding fix last year was little more than a Band-Aid. To address its $14.38 million in revenue and its $15.3 million in costs, Franklin School District made up the difference through one-time expenditures.
These included $100,000 from a school reserve fund; $160,000 from a special education trust fund; $100,000 from the school district’s end-of-year fund balance; and $150,000 originally reserved for SAU reconciliations, but available due to the completion of backed-up audits.
The city of Franklin helped too, transferring more than $400,000 from municipal departments to the school department. Mayor Ken Merrifield and City Councilor Olivia Zink also gave up their annual salaries, adding $2,476 more.
This year, the Franklin school board approved a $15.4 million budget. This is about $1.1 million short of the district’s revenue from grants, state and local taxes, which total $14.26 million.
The drop in revenue between the two years is partly due to a decrease in state stabilization funding, which is going through 4 percent reductions on an annual basis until the grant funds are removed all together.
“This year alone, we are losing $176,000 in stabilization,” Franklin school board Chairman Tim Dow said.
To stay within the city’s tax cap requirements, Dow said between 15 and 20 teachers will likely receive pink slips on May 12, notifying them of a layoff, “unless the (Franklin) city council tells us they have this number of dollars to give us,” Dow said.
That’s a big question for the May 8 budget workshop the school board and city council have scheduled. City Manager Elizabeth Dragon said while education is the most dire issue for Franklin, there are other departments feeling the squeeze, too, like fire and police.
“We are seeing high numbers in overtime, some burnout,” Dragon said in a recent interview. “Just the number of calls for the staff that we have is becoming concerning.”
Even when the district does manage to patch together a budget, Franklin’s spending per pupil is still well below average. In 2015-16, Franklin’s per-pupil spending was $11,918.97, compared to the state average of $14,901.93, according to the New Hampshire Department of Education.
Franklin, mirroring much of the state, also has a declining student enrollment. While next year’s student body is projected to have 1,089 members, DOE data show Franklin’s district fall enrollment at 1,240 five years ago.
These issues, in tandem with tight budgets, led the New England Association of Schools and Colleges Commission on Public Schools to issue a letter to Franklin High School expressing concern about its future compliance with accreditation requirements.
“In the letter, they said they’re gravely concerned about our staffing, lack of supplies,” Charette said.
Following last year’s budgeting process, the district eliminated a number of supplies from the budget. They were made up through donations and fundraising.
The letter does commend the school for its efforts, including the creation of “Karma Korner,” as well as the “dedicated work done by staff members and administrators to meet the needs of students despite continued budget cuts.”
Charette said despite all the challenges her school and the others in the district face, it’s an inspiring place to work.
“With Franklin, it’s always about the budget,” Charette said. “But our kids are amazing. We’re all taking care of each other.”
Charette and other staff members have come up with creative methods to still provide Franklin High School students with whatever they can.
These include exchanging spots in woodworking, advanced placement English and calculus classes at Franklin for seats in Winnisquam Regional High School’s AP physics, AP history, agriculture and computer classes.
Through partnerships with places like the Huot Technical Center in Laconia, Charette said students do excel – she has one student who received her culinary coat in her first year.
“It has never happened before,” she said. “That’s something they get their second year.”
Despite losing its extended learning opportunity coordinator, the high school has partnered with Colby-Sawyer College to give students credit for beautifying the school. These include turning a scraggly patch near the entrance into a greenspace and rainwater collection spot.
“So that fills that void,” Charette said. She added that one student also painted high school walls for internship credit.
“The kids, they have ownership in the building and want to make improvements,” she said. “Paint is inexpensive and it does so much – it lifts the spirits.”
School and city officials are considering the long-term options for the future of Franklin’s education. Members of both bodies have testified in front of the state Legislature about the need for more state funding to property-poor districts like theirs.
They’re also thinking about consolidating the school’s financial administration with the city’s.
School board member Susan Hallett-Cook encouraged those complaining about the problem at last week’s meeting to get involved.
“I understand the frustration,” she said. “I think we get a lot of lip service and not a lot of action.”
That’s the main suggestion from state education commissioner Frank Edelblut, who recently visited the Franklin School District.
“As I’m coming around to the school districts, what I’m a proponent of is parent voice in the different communities,” Edelblut said. He said there needs to be grassroots efforts to address education funding within the Legislature, though he also realizes there are differing levels of community need.
“Obviously if there are students who have greater needs, I’m going to advocate for them,” he said.
Dragon, the city manager who was present during Edelblut’s visit, said the commissioner acknowledged the issue of declining stabilization funding for communities like Franklin.
She also said Edelblut suggested different approaches to problem solving, like potentially replacing worksheets and textbooks with grant-funded iPads, or tuitioning students out to other districts.
Dragon is currently assessing how much longer Franklin can continue the business model of passing school budgets with temporary, $1 million fixes.
“I’m always looking at that tipping point,” she said. “It’s a difficult conversation to have, but the trend is, we’re declining at such a high pace. Doing it the same way is making it very difficult financially.”
(Elodie Reed can be reached at 369-3306, ereed@cmonitor.com or on Twitter
@elodie_reed.)