Amid holiday cheer, Kearsarge residents look toward school budget cap vote with worry
Published: 12-24-2024 12:03 PM |
As Michael Simon departed Cafe One East in downtown Warner on a frigid afternoon before Christmas, he was already looking past the holidays and toward the new year with trepidation.
On the first Saturday of January, residents of the Kearsarge Regional School District will vote on a proposed school budget cap, which district leaders have threatened could upend education as residents know it.
“I’m very concerned; I’m a retired educator,” said Simon, 77.
As locals like Simon grabbed lunch and last-minute gifts Monday afternoon, that weariness about the vote was a nearly universal sentiment.
“I think if you’re going to have a budget cut, the school is probably the last place you should take money from,” said Jennifer Diggs, 62, an artist from Sutton, who also opposes the move.
“I think it may be an easy target,” she added. “I think the schools sometimes pay the price for spending in other places.”
After a group of residents brought forth a petition earlier this month to cap the Kearsarge budget at $27,000 per student – which would amount to at least a 17% cut to the local school budget that school officials called “cataclysmic” – a furious organizing effort in opposition has begun to take hold at the height of the holiday season.
This academic year, the district spent $32,566 per student.
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The cap will go up for a vote at the school district’s annual deliberative session on Jan. 4, a typically sparsely-attended meeting that serves as a precursor to the school district election in March.
The proposal requires a three-fifths majority of those in attendance to pass.
If the measure succeeds, it would force the district to close multiple schools and lay off about 85 employees, Superintendent John Fortney said in an interview last week.
“Schools have had a lot of hard circumstances to deal with and a budget cut of this nature I feel would make it impossible for the schools to continue the good job that they’re doing,” said Simon, who taught at the Kearsarge Regional Elementary School at Bradford for 17 years.
On Monday, the lone supporter of a cap was Lee Booker, a retired post office worker who lives in Sutton.
“I think the school board’s gone overboard,” said Booker, who moved from Hopkinton in part because the school portion of his property taxes were getting too expensive.
As he departed MainStreet BookEnds with a stack of new purchases in hand, Booker dismissed the threats of closed schools and mass layoffs as “scare tactics.”
“I know there’s a lot of waste in the school district,” said Booker, 77. “They need to do something because the schools are getting out of hand.”
The average cost per pupil in the state was about $20,322 last school year, but that figure doesn’t include things like equipment, debt payments and interest. Given that measurement, the Kearsarge district spent $23,774 last year, according to figures compiled by the state Department of Education. When total district spending is taken into account, the district’s cost per student rises over $30,000.
Inside the bookstore, owner Katharine Nevins interpreted the 24% increase in the schools’ $54.3 million budget over the last five years differently than Booker.
“I think it’s just the reality of what it costs to educate children,” said Nevins, whose four adult children went through the school district.
She doesn’t think the cap has much of a chance of passing – but she is working hard to find someone to cover the store so she can attend the meeting and vote.
“I think people care too much about the schools,” Nevins said.
The Kearsarge district, which has a total enrollment of 1,700 students, includes the seven towns of Bradford, Newbury, New London, Sutton, Springfield, Warner, and Wilmot. Combined they have a population of about 14,000 residents.
Jeremy Margolis can be contacted at jmargolis@cmonitor.com.