In what might be the region’s only case of its kind during this season of school budget presentations, the John Stark School District budget says it is facing a large decrease in the two items that usually drive cost increases: salaries and benefits.

However, the proposed operating budget is still going up 2.3% because of a huge rise in an unavoidable cost: special education.

As detailed in Friday’s deliberative session, which drew barely a dozen people to John Stark High School and was over in less than an hour, the district is dropping two teaching positions that are currently unfilled. This is a large factor in reducing expected costs for salaries by $235,394 and benefits by $167,683 next year. 

Those figures do not factor in a proposed new teachers contract, which will also be on the ballot March 11.

More than balancing out that decline is a proposed $418,000 increase in tuition costs related to sending students outside the district for special education needs, as well as an extra $27,000 in special education transportation. That increase is fueled by a “big bubble” of students coming into the high school next year, said School Board member De Urbaitis during her presentation.

One other cost increase is an extra $26,750 to send students to the Concord Regional Technical Center. That cost used to be largely covered by grants from the state, Urbaitis said, but that figure has been reduced along with other state aid for local schools.

In a separate presentation, James Newcomb said that cutbacks by legislators in what are known as hold-harmless grants to school districts has added 18 cents to the impact in Weare of the proposed operating budget, doubling the amount of extra money that taxpayers in that town will pay if the budget passes.

The proposed operating budget for the upcoming fiscal year is $15.5 million, an increase of $353,617 or 2.33% over the budget approved last year.

Also proposed is a new two-year teachers contract that would raise starting salaries from the current $41,739 by 12% over two years to $46,898 with similar percentage increases for other levels of education and experience. 

Newcomb said the increases were designed to help bring the district in line with neighbors and help it attract and hold teachers, but that they couldn’t afford to cover the entire gap. As well as pay increases, he said, the contract alters existing “prescriptive language” to give teachers more flexibility in the classroom, both to help schooling and to make the positions more attractive to candidates.

“In most jobs when you have a highly educated workforce they have professional responsibilities that they must adhere to. They are evaluated on those responsibilities and if they don’t meet them, you hire somebody else. We went with that approach,” he said. “Rather than trying to dictate a number of different things we’re providing them with more flexibility.”

If the budget and teachers contract both pass, it would raise the John Stark tax rate in Weare by an estimated 55 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation, adding $220 to the annual tax bill of a $400,000 home, and raise the John Stark tax rate in Henniker by an estimated 23 cents, or $92 more to the bill of a $400,000 home.

A petitioned warrant article would require including the estimated tax impact on all budget and warrant articles. It is unanimously supported by the school board.

Because the school district moderator resigned before the session, the meeting was led by local resident Raelyn Viti.