Henniker voters will be asked whether to expand the preschool program to pre-pandemic levels in this year’s annual meeting and will face a proposed school budget that would raise the tax rate by about 4%.

The preschool expansion is proposed in a warrant article separate from the budget. It asks for $150,000, although that amount may be reduced before voting time in March due to other sources of income.

“This is a way for us to gauge what the public opinion might be for increasing that program,” School Board Chair Deb Urbaitis said Tuesday concerning the decision to put the request in a separate article. “If everybody’s good with it, great. If not, great – we’ll do that.”

Preschool is required for students with certain special needs and can serve other pupils if desired. Henniker Community School Principal Matthew Colby the staff has offered a variety of preschool programs over the years.

Before COVID-19 arrived, the program had 22 pupils, two-thirds of whom did not require special services. During the pandemic it was down to the legal minimum, then expanded, then cut down again. The arrival of full-day kindergarten may have impacted the numbers.

“We’re serving commuter families in Henniker. … In terms of a preschool need, there’s a daycare/child care need … which I think is largely not met in town,” he said. “We go back and forth on what’s the best way to meet the needs of those children.”

As of October, just seven pupils, most receiving special services, were enrolled in pre-K.

Overall enrollment in the school, which serves students through grade 8, has declined about 5% from the 2019 figure of 427, down to 401. Like many New Hampshire schools, it has seen a gradual decline in enrollment as the state’s population ages. Older students attend John Stark High School, which is shared with the town of Weare.

The proposed operating budget presented Tuesday is $9.63 million, a 3.4% increase from the current budget of $9.31 million. It is estimated that this would raise the local school property tax from $8.10 per $1,000 of assessed valuation to $8.39, adding $101 to the annual tax bill of a house valued at $350,000.

If the budget is rejected, a default budget of $9.51 million would go into effect.

Of the increase in the proposed budget, $87,278 or about 9.3% is due to salaries, including year two of the teachers' contract and a $12,000 increase for a psychologist.

Other proposed cost increases include $24,000 more for transportation from the bus contract and $13,812 for the expansion of the middle school athletics program. Henniker fielded its first middle school girls' soccer team this year and hopes to add a boys' soccer team next year.

According to Tuesday’s presentation, Henniker Community School has received $826,000 in four rounds of COVID grant funding. This has been used for a variety of things such as upgrading facilities to reduce the spread of the virus and developing remote learning, as well as paying for a math interventionist to help compensate for the loss of math instruction due to COVID.

The cost of the math interventionist will be covered in the upcoming budget by $147,492 remaining from the COVID grants. Next year’s meeting will need to decide what to do with the position after the federal grant has run out.

The budget and warrant articles will be discussed at the Deliberative Session on Monday, Feb. 6, at 7 p.m. in the Community School. Voting will take place on Tuesday, March 14.

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