Wilton-Lyndeborough will hold its district meeting Saturday at 9 a.m. at Wilton-Lyndeborough Cooperative Middle High School, with residents having the opportunity to decide on this year’s operating budget of $13.1 million.
“The overall operating budget as we’ve prepared it for the taxpayers is what we feel is a very responsbible budget,” said district Business Administrator Kristie LaPlante.
The figure this year comes in at a 3.1% increase over last year, she said, which includes the second year of a teachers’ contract that was previously approved by voters. The majority of the increase is in wages and benefits.
LaPlante said there are two major line items in the operating budget that residents may be interested in, one of which is $45,000 for the district to purchase a vehicle for the facilities director, who currently uses his personal vehicle for work.
“At the end of the day, look at it as a tool,” LaPlante said, adding that the School Board and Budget Committee decided to put it in the operating budget instead of a separate warrant article due to the budget being lower than expected overall.
The other budget line item that LaPlante pointed out is $20,000 for the district to rip up and remove the district’s tennis courts, which were constructed in the 1980s and are in disrepair, according to LaPlante.
“We’re at the point now, with so much deferred maintenance, we’ve only got a few options,” she said. The district could do nothing and block access to the courts, rip them up and resurface them or simply remove them.
LaPlante said the decision to remove them was reached after much deliberation, and was based partially in a decline in the tennis program at the high school.
“And then with that decline, looking at what other options there are if they do have kids that want to play,” she said, including partnering with other high schools or renting court time from a nearby organization. These options would be less expensive for taxpayers in the long run, she said, than replacing the courts.
The other items on the WLC warrant are a $130,000 article for the buildings and grounds capital reserve fund and $100,000 for the special education fund.
LaPlante said that it has been difficult to gauge community response to the warrant items this year, as not many residents have attended the board’s budget hearings, but that the board and the administration hope residents will be supportive of the budget and warrant articles.
“We know that each town has their own budget hurdles ahead of them and obviously our ask is in addition to community ask,” she said. “It all depends on what everyone can pay for.”