‘Completely cataclysmic’: If passed, proposed budget cap in Kearsarge school district could lead to school closures, layoffs

Kearsarge Regional High School on Dec. 16, 2016 in North Sutton, N.H. Jennifer Hauck/Valley News photo, file
Published: 12-22-2024 9:01 AM
Modified: 12-22-2024 9:05 AM |
In a move that is becoming more common across the state, a group of residents is vying to slash the Kearsarge Regional School District budget by an amount district leaders contend would force them to lay off scores of educators and close schools.
The proposal, which was initiated by a group of 35 residents earlier this month, would cap the district budget at $27,000 per student, a reduction of approximately 17% were it in effect this year.
“It would be completely cataclysmic for the school district,” said Richard Anderson, the chair of the district’s Municipal Budget Committee.
The reduction would lead to the elimination of at least 85 of the 200 teaching positions in the district, Superintendent John Fortney estimated in an interview on Thursday.
The vote – which will occur at a deliberative session meeting on Jan. 4 – pits those who say Kearsarge’s budget has grown too high against those who argue that the cost increases are due to state and national factors that the district can’t control.
“The school, which is the major portion of our property taxes, keeps going up and up,” said Bambi Davis, 0f Newbury, one of the 35 people who signed the petition. “And they remove programs and they increase the budget every single year, which I believe is very over-inflated.”
Kearsarge’s budget, which is $54.3 million this year, has grown 24% since the 2019-20 school year. The most recent statewide data shows the district’s growth has actually been about one percentage point slower than that of the state as a whole.
Davis, 66, accused teachers of abusing lenient sick-time policies and administrators of being “handsomely and fatly paid.” She didn’t buy the threats from school district leaders that implementing the cap would force them to lay off teachers and close schools.
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“I think if everybody did their job and did it properly, that that would not have to occur,” said Davis, who recently retired as a bookkeeper and had two children go through the school district.
This academic year, the district – which includes Warner, Wimot, Newbury, Sutton, New London, Bradford, and Springfield – spent $32,566 per student.
In 2022-23, the most recent year statewide cost-per-pupil data is available, Kearsarge spent about $3,000 more than the state average. (Cost-per-pupil data reported by the state does not include a range of additional expenses, including operating costs, equipment, construction, and interest.)
The push to cut the school budget so dramatically follows similar efforts in Pembroke and Croydon in recent years. Voters in Pembroke rejected a $3 million school budget increase during the annual meeting last March, which forced the district to eliminate 27 positions.
As school budgets continue to rise – with special education and transportation costs, along with salary and benefits typically being the major drivers – these measures taken by frustrated residents could grow more common.
The group of petitioners submitted their warrant article on Dec. 5. The early January vote will come at a deliberative session meeting that is typically sparsely attended and is precursor to the school district election in March.
The cap will need a three-fifths majority to pass and would not take effect until the 2026-27 school year budget, according to Anderson, the committee chair.
Claire Ketteler, a municipal budget committee member from Newbury and one of the organizers of the petition, wrote in an emailed statement that she had tried to rein in the school budget through her elected role but did not succeed.
“The budget cap petition is a tool to re-engage voters with the school district budget, the largest part of the property tax bill,” Ketteler wrote. “Hopefully it will increase transparency of the school district budget and process.”
She did not respond to follow-up questions about whether she found the purported effect on the school district reasonable.
Fortney, the superintendent, said the implementation of the cap would upend how education is delivered in the district.
“We would have to close schools, but closing two of them probably still wouldn’t be enough,” he said. “If something like this were to happen, it would force us to make cuts that impact every kid in the district.”
Anderson, the budget committee chair, said he didn’t think the district would be able to deliver even a legally required “adequate” education if the cap were to go into effect.
He said his committee has tried to be cognizant of the tax impact of the school district and trimmed where they are able, but that a 17% reduction would not be tenable.
“Nobody is unsympathetic to folks having to pay tax bills,” said Anderson, a New London resident. “We all have tax bills that we have to pay, but we also do believe that a public education is enormously important and is a very important investment in the future of the whole area.”
The vote will take place at Kearsarge Regional High School at 9 a.m. on Jan. 4.
Jeremy Margolis can be contacted at jmargolis@cmonitor.com.