Chichester residents approved a $6.7 million school budget during the district’s annual meeting Saturday with little opposition.
The 2022-23 school budget is expected to cause a 4.8% increase in taxes, according to projections shared by school board chairman Ben Brown. For the average Chichester resident living in a $300,000 home, that equates to an additional $219 in taxes a year. This is the first time since 2017 that the projected tax rate increased.
Residents at the Saturday meeting passed the budget 54-3.
The budget includes money for some facility upgrades, including roof repairs, blind-spot security cameras and Wifi access points. Under the approved budget, substitute teachers’ daily will see a permanent boost in their daily stipends from $80 a day to $100 a day, which Brown said is to keep the school competitive with other districts like Concord, which pays substitute teachers $120 per day.
Brown said the tax hike is largely due to a decline in revenue. The school saw a 19% drop in revenue overall, as contributions from the state and federal government declined. The district also did not use surplus money to fund next year’s budget, unlike last year when about $216,000 in unspent money was used to offset the tax rate.
As of late January, the district had a surplus of nearly $400,000. However, Brown said it is too early in the year to rely on that money for next year’s budget.
Brown also said Pembroke Academy, the high school school Chichester Central School feeds into, has upped its rates per student, also contributing to the tax increase.
Next year, four more students will attend the high school, raising out-of-district expenditures by almost $100,000, or about 9% more than previous years.
As full-time teachers near the end of a 5-year contract with the district, a new three-year contract was also passed unanimously by town residents.
The contract includes a 2% increase in salaries every year, a boost from the 1.5% pay increase outlined in the former contract. The collective bargaining agreement also includes more comprehensive life insurance policies and military and jury-duty leave and will add about $80,000 a year in additional expenses for each of the next three years.
The district also asked residents for the permission to hold onto up to $240,000, 5% of the fiscal year’s net assessments, in unspent budget money. Brown said that money would be used to balance tax rates and minimize drastic dips and hikes from year to year. The district had previously been allowed to hold onto up to 2.5% of the net assessments.
“The idea is that if we have a large surplus, and we want to return it all, it artificially lowers the tax rate one year,” Brown said. “All of the years we don’t have that same surplus, it might look like a huge jump.”
The surplus money could only be spent if there was an emergency situation and the Department of Education agreed to the expenditure.
The warrant article passed with a a narrower margin, 36-15, after some public members argued unspent funds should be returned, since money in the school district is mired in restrictions from the Department of Education.