LETTER: School Board Surplus Spending

Dear Editor,

Each year the school district budget is initially developed by staff and administrators. The school board reviews the preliminary budget line-by-line in November and December. It is then presented to the community at a Public Hearing in January, and for discussion in February at the Annual School District Meeting’s Deliberative Session. There are many areas in the budget that are predictable and several that are more difficult to accurately project including salaries, health care, special education and utilities. In each area, the staff makes recommendations on the most likely scenarios. There are deficits and surpluses in accounts every year. For example, snow plowing and oil will have surpluses this year due to our warmer winter weather.

There have also been times where a surplus in one function has been used in other areas. There were no owner contingencies built into the budget of the middle school and high school construction project.

Operating budget surplus funds were used to fund additional or unexpected items (which can be found at http://www.sau25.net/files/filesystem/MS-HS%20Project%20Funding%20%201.22.12.pdf) after board discussion in public session. There were additional items added to the project that were approved by the voters in a bond for start up costs in March 2006.

The board has approved two unbudgeted capital improvements in recent years. In 2007, we approved $76,000 for the replacement of the septic system at Memorial School, which was in failure. In spring 2011, we approved $90,000 to replace the aging phone system in all older schools, which was functioning inconsistently.

In 2009, the board approved the “advance” of three capital improvement items that were approved by voters at the March 2009 Annual School District Meeting based on the lower expenditures for that year and uncertainty in several accounts for the following year. The board approved replacing a section of McKelvie roof ($90,000), the installation of pre-heaters in McKelvie oil burners to reduce oil consumption ($35,000), and security upgrades to schools ($19,000). The remaining surplus of $1,881,074 was then returned to the taxpayers to reduce taxes.

Last spring, after the March election, the district was faced with a potential unbudgeted increase in New Hampshire Retirement System employer contributions of close to $1 million. The superintendent developed a contingency plan to reduce the budget by approximately $1.2 million, which the board approved and implemented. Part of the plan included using $290,000 of FY2011 surplus funds to replace a section of the roof at Peter Woodbury School, which was previously approved by voters. The board did debate using the school maintenance trust fund yet ultimately felt it was important to build the fund for longer-term and larger capital projects, especially with a significant number of building/site needs at the McKelvie Intermediate School. The increase in New Hampshire Retirement System employer contributions was lower than estimated. The board chose not to reinstate most of the cuts for this year or for the FY2013 proposed Budget, which will result in significant savings of approximately $650,000.

The school board takes its role and the trust of the community very seriously. In the past, any time the board has considered using surplus funds, the decision has taken place during public sessions spanning at keast two school board meetings or more in order to seek public input before a final decision was made.

Sincerely,

Bedford School Board

Terry Wolf, Cindy Chagnon, Don Graff, Scott Earnshaw, Bill Foote