For the second consecutive year, Merrimack Valley’s annual meeting threatened to devolve into a procedural fracas.
Just minutes into the meeting Thursday, a Loudon resident called for a nearly $1 million reduction to the school board’s proposed budget.
The speaker before her contended she had already requested a vote on the budget, but moderator Charlie Niebling said he would not recognize the request. A cascade of points of order rained down from the bleachers of the high school’s gymnasium.
A year after a group of voters deployed a concerted strategy to drag out the meeting and narrowly pass a reduced budget, it appeared the hundreds of residents in attendance could be in for another long night.
Then, Penacook resident Adam Russell stepped in.
“My attitude was: If they can weaponize process, two can play at that game,” said Russell, who is the spouse of school board member Jessica Wheeler Russell. “If they’re going to use process to bog down the meeting so that people here have to leave and can’t vote, then I’m going to use process right back to make sure they can’t do that.”
Russell’s motion to override Niebling’s ruling and put the budget to a vote easily passed. Unlike last year, there would be limited discussion, no amendments and no secret ballots.
In a reversal of last year’s annual meeting, it was supporters, not opponents, of the budget who proved most prepared and represented in the strongest numbers.
“I really think that last year, people were stunned by what happened and didn’t expect it, and they wanted to make sure that it didn’t happen again this year,” said board chair Tracy Bricchi of Penacook.
Shortly after Russell’s successful maneuver, the $51.9 million budget — a 3.4% increase from this year — passed by a vote of 352 to 104. Residents also approved a new contract with the educators’ union, a pair of appropriations to the special education and maintenance trust funds and a restrictive open enrollment policy — all in voice votes.
As the wins for the school board stacked up, those who had waged the budget-slashing campaign last year trickled out of one side of the gymnasium bleachers. Across the court, a section of educators and their supporters wearing red celebrated.
Robert Montgomery, the vice president of the Merrimack Valley Educators’ Association and a high school history teacher, said the night left him feeling “elated.”
“I think, to some degree, last year was a wake-up call,” he said. “For a long time, people probably just didn’t come out. I think last year convinced a lot of people that you can’t do that. And so, I feel like we had a lot of supporters out there.”
The successful night was the culmination of a year of adjustments by the school board. After weathering calls for increased transparency following the disclosure in early 2025 of a $2 million over-expenditure, the board engaged in a multi-faceted communications initiative and revamped its budget-making process.
Bricchi said that work will continue.
“We made a huge leap forward with sharing,” she said. “We have it all set up, and it would be crazy not to continue it.”
The new budget and accompanying appropriations will have a significant tax impact, particularly in some communities. The district projected that local education taxes will increase $3.28 per $1,000 of property value in Penacook, $1.78 in Boscawen and $1.51 in Loudon. For a property valued at $400,000, that would amount to increases of $1,312, $712 and $604 respectively. The tax growth in Salisbury and Webster is expected to be less substantial.
In a familiar refrain, proponents of the budget said residents should focus on electing state lawmakers who will increase the state’s role in funding education, thereby reducing local property taxes.
“If you’re looking to fight a battle on taxes, there’s really no other way to put it: You’re in the wrong room,” Russell said.
In addition to the budget, residents voted in four school board races on Thursday.
In the only officially contested race, Wheeler Russell prevailed in her re-election bid for the board’s at-large seat over Republican State Rep. Louise Andrus of Salisbury, by a vote of 460 to 222.
The other three races were officially uncontested, though current Boscawen board member Tom Laliberte waged an eleventh-hour write-in campaign in his town’s race. That effort fell short, and newcomer Ryan Gunn was elected by a vote of 364 to 271.
In the Loudon race, Amanda York, who was appointed to the board last year, won her first election.
In the Penacook race, Spencer Dickinson won. He will take the seat vacated by his wife, Sally Hirsh-Dickinson, who stepped down after nine years on the board.
All board seats are for three years.