Can The Concord School District SAU 8 Get Its Budget Under $100 Million?

CONCORD, NH — Concord School District administration and board of education members are grappling over how to keep the 2023-2024 budget under $100 million.

Initially, in early February, School Superintendent Kathleen Murphy proposed a nearly $101 million budget. The budget had six primary goals: equity and diversity, curriculum, social and emotional learning, communication, facilities, and safety. The district hopes to “catalyze systemic and cultural changes in the Concord schools and community” centered on “restorative and inclusive practices.” While focusing on instruction and assessment, the district said a goal would be to use research-based teaching to ensure a quality competency-based education. Multi-tiered systems of support that utilize frameworks and data collection will also be used to improve student growth and behavioral health while communicating with families, students, staff, and the community in as many ways as possible. The district also wants to ensure sustainable infrastructure and enhance the security of students and staff.

For fiscal year 2023, the district spent $98.6 million, meaning keeping the budget under $100 million would be about a 4 percent increase.

About 80 percent of the budget is salaries and benefits — which are increasing in cost from 4 to 5 percent. Health care increased by about 9 percent while retirement also increased, too. The professional services budget has increased by about 20 percent — around $589,000.

Equipment expenses, however, have been reduced by $1.9 million.

Some new proposed positions, like a public information officer, budgeted at nearly $108,000, will be paid for through grants and will assist with promotional materials and reports for the Concord Regional Technical Center.

The district expects to be able to raise about $98.7 million in revenue, leaving them about $2.2 million short.

Most of the increases in the budget this year have to do with closing the learning gap that was lost during the pandemic, Murphy said.

“Students were not provided consistent education during the pandemic,” she said. “It’s that simple. It doesn’t matter where you are. Everyone is seeing this (in the data). That was our challenge — to maintain and support our students and maintain reasonable response to the community and the taxpayers. We knew that from the get go.”

SAU 8 Budget Meetings

• Open Budget Session Meeting: 5:30 p.m. on March 27 at the Central Office.
• Finalize Budget Meeting: 5:30 p.m. on March 29 at the Central Office.

To begin to get lower than $100 million, the administration and board began to remove positions.

Jack Dunn, the business administrator for the district, said board members were looking for options — amounts of money and items that could be cut and how that could reduce the overall tax rate.

A school resource officer proposed for the Rundlett Middle School, which is funded 25 percent by the Concord Police Department, was the first position to be eliminated, saving about $95,000.

From there, board members are considering several other positions, funded mainly by grants, to be reduced or eliminated. Two elementary school teaching positions will not be refilled due to retirement and enrollment charges. A floater nurse is also proposed to be reduced due to retirement.

Average class sizes between kindergarten and sixth grade will be between 17 and 25.

At the same time, other positions will need to be filled. An assistant principal, as an example, needs to be hired at Concord High School to replace Steve Rothenberg, who served both as CRTC director and assistant principal, which will be funded at 220 days. The high school will also hire an art teacher and athletic trainer.

At more than 750 students, Murphy said she could not pull the new CRTC director from those duties to handle assistant principal tasks.

The district also hired a diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice director at $118,000 in salary and benefits for a 200-day contract. Three math coaches, two CRTC educators, another high school business teacher — with a second one moving to CRTC and being funded through a Perkins grant, a preschool teacher at Abbot-Downing, and the PIO position are being added.

Dunn said many positions would be paid for through grant funds that the district stocked away instead of artificially lowering the tax rate.

Murphy said the diversity officer was working with more than just the students of color but also included the developmentally disabled, students with gender and sexuality issues, special education students who are bullied, and homeless children.

“I know what people are thinking,” she said. “It’s more than just ‘working with the families of color.’ A whole population, we heard, feels neglected and not paid attention to (in the district).”

One of the greatest needs in the district with the learning gap is mathematics, so the district is hiring math coaches and splitting them up between the elementary schools.

The district also proposes reinstating a facilities manager position at $111,415, eliminated in 2017.

View budget documents online: 2023-2024 Budget Work Sessions

After looking at proposals to cut between $675,000 to $2.6 million from the budget, board members settled on around $2.2 million.

With all the cuts, additions, and shifts, the district is still around $700,000 short of goal, Dunn said. He hoped to transfer money from trust funds to pad revenues, and refinancing some loans would save more money.

State funds are also a mishmash of unconfirmed amounts of money. However, the district expects to receive somewhere between $21.9 million and $23.3 million — an increase in funding despite a drop in enrollments. Dunn said he hoped the state would approve the higher amount, and if so, the money from the trust funds that were taken out could be replenished. It is a strategy that has been used in prior years.

“We are doing the same things here — trying to manage the budget with a lot of unknowns,” he said.

Dunn said the numbers from the state are a bit of a mess due to an infusion of $100 million to schools last year, which was given to districts. Murphy said Every Student Succeeds Act funds, too, were at $19 million for the district, and she could not go back to the community to sustain. Many positions that employees and the district found valuable will be preserved.

At the same time, the district has several openings and has been unable to fill them. Nearly 70 positions are open in the district.

Getting the district under $100 million should bring the school tax rate to around $13.77 per $1,000 instead of more than $14.

Murphy said it would meet students' needs despite the back-and-forth with the budget.

“Yeah,” she said. “You can always reach for the stars. You can always do that. But I think that the message we had was clear: We didn’t want to go to the extremes; we wanted to find the middle of the road. And I think that’s where we have ended. I really do.”

To be approved five board members must vote for the budget on Wednesday for it to be approved.

Have you got a news tip? Please send it to tony.schinella@patch.com. View videos on Tony Schinella's YouTube.com channel or Rumble.com channel.