A proposed $2.74 million cut to the proposed Jaffrey-Rindge School District budget was soundly defeated by voters at the district’s deliberative session on Wednesday night.
The Conant Middle High School auditorium was full to the bleachers, with 393 voters from Rindge and 292 voters from Rindge in attendance to discuss the district’s nine warrant articles.
The proposed district budget for the coming year is $33.5 million. School Board Chair Lisa Wiley said the budget included step increases for staff, health and dental increases, a new position at the SAU for an assistant superintendent, and other changes.
The budget is a $2.72 million increase, or about 8.8% more than the current budget. The new budget includes action to restore the athletics and activities and preschool which were paid for by unreserved funds last year.
Wiley said that the district’s reserves were exhausted in the past year, as the district used them to shore up programs and positions that would have otherwise been cut after a $3 million cut to the district’s proposed budget last year. Wiley said another cut would be “devastating” for the district.
After more than an hour of comments on the budget, Rindge resident Roberta Oeser offered an amendment which would reduce the proposed budget to $30.76 million. She said that number was arrived at by using the per-pupil average cost, Jaffrey-Rindge’s student population, and taking into account a 2.7% increase.
Oeser called the cuts proposed last year after the reduced budget was passed, including originally proposed cuts to athletics, clubs and preschool, “vengeful” and “vindictive.”
The amendment was voted on via secret ballot, and was defeated by a wide margin, with 455 against and 208 in favor.
Following the failure of the amendment, the voting body moved the proposed budget, unchanged, to the ballot.
Jaffrey resident Tom Ahlborn-Hsu said the district was bound by the state to pay for many things, and cautioned against cutting things like extra-curriculars and non-required pre-school. He said it would make students more likely to seek other districts, if a proposed law that allows students to attend any school in the state is signed into law.
“Cutting things that are quote unquote discretionary will make the schools less attractive,” Ahlborn-Hsu said. “And we know open enrollment is coming.”
Residents of the district, including some students, spoke in favor of the originally proposed budget, particularly the restoration of funds for activities and athletics.
Student Eliana Ludlam spoke to the assembly about the impact her involvement in Drama Club and Junior National Honor Society has had on her, including giving her the confidence and public speaking skills to speak to the crowd.
“We want to benefit the community as much as possible, but if the budget isn’t restored, we might not have that chance,” Ludlam said, urging, “Fund our school. Save our future.”
Middle School student Aidan Maher spoke about the skills students learn in extra-curricular activities. “Cutting this budget, or not passing the proposed budget, will impact hundreds of students,” Maher said. “Give the students of today the experience you had.”
Rindge resident Carl Walter spoke against the proposed budget, asking if the School Board was “listening to the taxpayers.” Walter said that those who supported last year’s cut to the proposed budget cared about the schools, but also cared about residents in their communities on fixed incomes.
“The taxpayers in our community are struggling to make ends meet. We need to work together and pass a budget that’s fiscally responsible,” Walter said.
The default budget, which will go into place should the proposed budget fail, is $31.99 million.
The School District has proposed a three-year agreement with the Jaffrey-Rindge Support Staff Association.
The first year of the agreement would include an increase of $236,283, followed by an increase of $214,174 in year two and $245,290 in the final year. The estimated tax impact would be an increase of 11 cents per $1,000 of assessment for Jaffrey and 9 cents for Rindge.
There were no comments from the floor on the article.
A separate article would authorize the district to host a special meeting to deal only with the matters relating to the Support Staff Association contract.
Jaffrey-Rindge grapples with open enrollment
Article V on the warrant deals with the possibility of open enrollment. The article would adopt state RSA 194-D, which creates an open enrollment policy
Open enrollment is a policy where districts can choose to allow students from other districts in the state to attend their schools, and to allow their students to attend schools outside the district. Under the law, the home school district is responsible for 80% of the tuition for the student.
The article would allow Jaffrey-Rindge to accept up to 150 students under the open enrollment laws, and to allow zero percent of their population to attend outside districts.
School Board member Chris Ratcliffe clarified that the language only applied to the open enrollment structure — students will still have the same options to attend other schools as they have now, he said. They can still attend private or charter schools, or use Education Freedom Account funds or pay tuition privately to attend schools outside their home district. He said the article would prevent Jaffrey-Rindge, as the home district, from having to pay those students’ tuitions.
Ratcliffe noted that legislation currently in the House of Representatives, expected to be voted on next week, could change the rules significantly for open enrollment, essentially requiring that all districts become open enrollment districts as a matter of law.
The proposed legislation, as written, may make the article moot, Superintendent Reuben Duncan said, but the district does not yet know all of the implications if the bill passes.
The article was passed unchanged to the warrant.
Capital reserve additions
There are two articles that request additions to an existing capital reserve and the creation of a new one.
One article would add a total of $350,000 for the reconstruction and repair of real estate, buildings and capital equipment. The amount would have a 17-cent increase on the Jaffrey tax rate and a 13-cent increase for Rindge.
The other article would create a new capital reserve fund for employee benefits. The purpose would be to fund unanticipated employee benefit costs, such as health insurance assessments, changes in coverage to more expensive plans, or severance agreements. The district is asking for $25,000 to be placed into the fund from the end of year unreserved fund balance.
Both articles were placed on the ballot after a brief explanation by the School Board and no comment from the public.
Amendments pass for budget cap, bathroom policy petition articles
There are two articles on the warrant that were submitted by petition this year. The first would call for a budget cap, which would have to be approved by a super-majority of three-fifths of the voting public.
The budget cap would limit the budget based on student average daily membership. The cap would allow a budget of $24,944 per pupil times the average daily membership, based on the membership on Oct. 1. The article allows for inflation, up to the percentage identified by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Claudia Stewart of Rindge, one of the petitioners who submitted the petition, said the article put a cap on the budget based on “an actual cost.”
She said taxpayers have been giving more and more to the district, and not seeing the results they want to see in student proficiency.
Petitioner Karlene Walter also spoke on the article, saying that as a former educator, she is pro-education but also “pro-community.”
She said the petition may have been “punitive” to “get a message across, “saying the district voters had sent a message last year with the cut, but said she didn’t know if the message had been received.
Alicia Stenersen of Rindge moved to amend the article to change the amount per pupil from $24,944 to $100,000.
“I know $100,000 sounds absurd, but that is intentional, because this warrant article itself is absurd,” Stenersen said. She said that $100,000, which she said would never be spent per pupil, “makes sure that voters know this article should fail.”
The amendment passed on a 315 yes, 58 no ballot vote. The article, as amended, was forwarded to the warrant.
The other warrant article submitted by petition would create a bathroom policy for the district. The language calls for a policy that “supports a student’s right to privacy, and separates biological and gender ideological bathroom choices.”
Stewart also spoke as a petitioner on this article. She said the article was spurred by discussions about a remodel of a bathroom at the high school. While she said she did not know of any concrete or immediate plans, she was concerned by a discussion during a November meeting of the School Board where the layout of a bathroom at the Keene High School was discussed, that had a unisex gathering and handwashing area with individual stalls. She said while some students or adults may be comfortable with that layout, the district should “err on the side of caution” during a “socially and emotionally challenging” time for young people.
Valerie Carey of Rindge said the Keene High School layout had individual floor-to-ceiling doors for the bathroom stalls, and cameras in the handwashing area, saying it provided “more privacy, not less, more monitoring, not less.”
Rindge resident Mike Golibersuch said that Stewart’s explanation of the impetus of the article did not address anything about the language related to “gender and ideological choices.” He proposed an amendment to the article to eliminate that language, leaving the article reading that the district “adopt a bathroom policy that supports a student’s right to privacy.”
The amendment passed by a large margin in a show of hands.
Voting on warrant articles will be held by official ballot on March 10 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Voting is held at Rindge Memorial School Gym for Rindge residents, and Conant Middle High School Pratt Auditorium for Jaffrey residents.