Washburn: Here We Go Again With The Concord School District

The school board is planning two public sessions on the proposed new middle school whose location represents a total betrayal of public input into the process.

The choices are limited to the box or the curtain. If the box is the ridiculous choice and the curtain is the sublime choice. The firm chosen to design the new school contract calls for a payment based on a percentage of construction cost so there is no incentive for cost savings. In the past the same firm has come up with conservative rehab costs for the existing facility but that is long past.

One of the driving forces behind the accelerated process has been the possibility of state construction aid. But wait, the possibility on no aid is a reality. Three funding issues will confront the 2025 legislature when in convenes in January. The first is the YDC settlement costs that caught everyone off guard when a NH jury awarded $38 M in the first case to go to trial. Next on the docket will be addressing the student required education funding support as a result of another court case. The state has in the past primarily addressed this issue on a per student basis. Of late they have included the lack of tax basis in smaller towns and cities. They have never considered the disproportionate amount of tax-exempt property in Concord and they should. The final item is the need to address changes to the Group 2 retirement benefits. There are no current efforts to address what the state did to all state retirees on health insurance costs when they made a change to sock it to the retirees a few years back. The bottom line is that there may be no or little aid funds available to assist in the school board's grandiose is not outlandish plans. The application for aid made by Concord did not include the current location which maybe a disqualify the application. Additionally, this is a statewide aid program which may mean that Concord may qualify for only a portion of the aid.

Absent from the current discussions will be the need for one or more new school busses and bus drivers.

The two scheduled hearings will make for interesting theater but will demonstrate how out of touch the school board is in dealing with Concord’s real and imagined current and future school needs, given decades of school enrollment decline and little possibility of change.

Amazingly, after the first joint city council/school board meeting years, city councilor Nathan Fennessy seems to be going along with the new school as long as he can play basketball there. It also came out that school staff has been meeting with city staff without the benefit of public minutes during the meetings.

And the beat goes on.