Concord School Board members are urging state lawmakers to expand building aid after the district’s fourth-place ranking made the likelihood of state funding for a new middle school low.
Last week, the Concord School Board voted 7-0 to adopt a resolution urging Gov. Chris Sununu and state legislators to add more funds to the State Building Aid Program, which offers grants to help New Hampshire school districts afford costly construction projects.
“Whereas the Concord School Board recognizes the importance of the New Hampshire Building Aid program for school districts and whereas the Concord School District understands that the cost of capital building projects falls heavily on local property taxpayers, we the Concord School Board support the expansion of the Building Aid Program, and urge our state legislators and the Governor to appropriate additional funding for State Building Aid program,” the statement read.
It’s a stance that serves the district – the state ranked Concord’s Rundlett Middle School building project as fourth on the priority list for building aid money last month. Since the state has just $49 million in building funds to allocate and Concord was seeking $70 million in aid for its $176 million project, the likelihood of funding seems low. Concord Superintendent Kathleen Murphy encouraged Concord residents to call their legislators and advocate for more funding to the building aid program at a community meeting last month.
School Board member Jonathan Weinberg proposed the resolution.
“I think we’re all aware of the limitations that might arise with the building costs and capital funding costs, and also the scope of the climate with taxpayers bearing the brunt of a lot of the costs of these projects,” Weinberg said. “I wanted to provide more latitude for the administration to help advocate for this by having the School Board have a direct stance on it.”
The Concord School District isn’t the only group with an eye on school building aid. Already, five legislative service requests relating to school building aid have been filed by various state representatives, which will be drafted into bills for the upcoming legislative session in January.
The list of future bills on the General Court website shows titles relating to the building aid program, building aid grants, the timeline for school building aid applications, and to charter school eligibility for state school building aid.
“There’s a lot of action over there,” Murphy told school board members. “This resolution will help us to move some of that activity forward.”
The city’s middle school project is still in the discussion phase, as no decisions have been made on a final design or location to replace Rundlett Middle School.