The Pembroke School Board has a lot to weigh going into budget season for the next school year.

The next proposed budget seeks to add $2 million in spending, bringing the total to $33.3 million.

The schools are still feeling the effects of last year’s $3 million in cuts to the proposed budget, which resulted in 27 positions being eliminated, a lack of funds for new supplies, and staff across different schools leaving to seek work elsewhere.

“The biggest priority is honestly not to lose more,” chair of the school board Andy Camidge said. “Budgets continue to go up. There’s nothing we can really do about that. There are heating costs, just like in houses, contract costs, teacher salaries and benefits all go up, and so the budget does too.”

The total proposed increase lands at 6.12%, with around $1.9 million of the $2 million increase falling into the category of operational costs, according to the school board’s second draft of the budget, discussed at a meeting last month.

Following the position cuts for the current year’s budget, the board hopes to restore four kindergarten paraprofessional positions for 2025-2026.

“These were all things removed from the current year budget because of the March cuts and were identified by the administration as the biggest need when we asked what should be reinstated,” Camidge said.

The board initially built the budget with the goal of reinstating two positions but decided at its Dec. 3 meeting to ultimately include four. The kindergarten paraprofessionals are the only positions that will be restored, Camidge said. He acknowledged the difficulty in finding teachers to replace the ones who left and said the different effects of the cuts are still being felt. For instance, after this semester, Pembroke Academy will no longer have a French teacher.

“I want to make sure it’s not a bare-bones budget because it is up $2 million,” board member Melanie Camelo said at a meeting on Nov. 17. “And with the cut sheet, I want to make sure we’re using those two documents and communicating with our town as to how important it is. Because if it does happen again, we may not be able to provide any sort of close to adequate education for these kids.”

As conversations around special education funding take the stage across New Hampshire and the country at large, Pembroke, like many towns, must consider how to finance these services for the students who need them. This will be part of the board’s ongoing discussions in the coming months.

Camidge recognizes the constraints of the budget in limiting what the district can provide.

“We’re not able to provide the level of education that we could a few years ago,” he said.

The school board will hold multiple public information nights throughout January to give residents the opportunity to learn more about the proposed budget and ask questions ahead of the scheduled public budget hearing in February.