The Mascenic Regional School Board has proposed a budget of approximately $21.5 million, including food service and grant funding. This is about a 2.3% increase from the previous year’s budget of just under $21 million.

The board presented the budget to the district on Tuesday in a budget hearing attended by about 20 people. The presentation lasted about an hour, and after fielding a few questions from the audience, the board closed the hearing without making any further adjustments to the budget. There will be another opportunity to make comments or amendments to the budget during the district’s deliberative session on Feb. 7.

If the budget does not pass, the district will operate under a default budget, which this year is $307,182 less than the proposed budget. The default is built by using the same appropriations contained in the operating budget, plus or minus costs in debt service, contracts and one-time obligations. The default budget is still an increase of about $167,341 from the previous year’s budget.

The School Board did not integrate the majority of suggestions made by the district’s Finance Advisory Committee, which included suggestions such as cutting the district’s superintendent, multiple teaching positions and staff such as school counselors. It did put forth a budget eliminating the equivalent of two full-time and two part-time teaching positions, choosing not to fill currently empty positions left by teachers retiring or moving to other districts. The cuts include one elementary school teacher, one high school math teacher, a half-time woodworking teacher and a half-time business teacher.

Superintendent Chris Martin said she was aware of the impact of eliminating the woodworking class.

“I know many people were disheartened we couldn’t offer woodworking this year,” Martin said. She said it was a position unlikely to be filled in its current configuration, but that the district would be revisiting ways to reinstate the class or something that provided similar skills in the next academic year.

The savings from those four positions were offset by a total of five positions which this year are in the budget after previously having been paid for by grant funding: a technology integrator, a social worker, a board-certified behavior analyst and two paraprofessionals. 

The majority of the increase in the budget is due to salaries, between the new positions and the ones no longer supported by grants, the contracted increases previously approved by district meeting, a 3% cost-of-living increase for non-union staff and an increase in the district’s health insurance rate, which is 9.1% higher than the previous year.

Increases from staff additions, raises and benefits increases account for about $620,982 in increases from last year’s budget, which were offset by other savings, said Business Administrator Beth Baker.

“This represents our best effort to keep costs down without effecting programming,” Baker said.

Reductions from last year’s budget include about $80,000 less in bond interest, $80,000 in reduction to transportation costs due to eliminating a mid-day bus run with the adoption of full-day kindergarten and $142,000 from one-time purchases of technology and curriculum.

The only other monetary warrant article on the ballot this year is a request to use $150,000 from the current fund balance for the school building and maintenance capital reserve. The funds would be added to the existing capital reserve of $248,188 and used $73,000 for LED lighting at Highbridge Hill Elementary School, $20,000 for seal coating the lower parking lot at Boynton Middle School, $60,000 to replace the hot-water boiler system at Mascenic Regional High School, $50,000 to replace a rooftop heater and $20,000 to replace the mower. The total cost of all projects is $223,000.

Using $150,000 in capital reserve funds, which might otherwise be used to offset tax rates, could have an impact of about $55 annually for Greenville or $44 for New Ipswich for a homeowner with a property valued at $300,000.

Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172, Ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on X @AshleySaariMLT.