School Board Approves $21.6M Budget

The Winnacunnet School Board voted unanimously Wednesday to finalize its $21.6 million budget and send it along for review to the budget committee.

The board met for roughly 1 1/2 hours Wednesday to address "open" budget lines and warrant articles, as well as provide member Wayne Skoglund a chance to ask questions and propose changes because he wasn't present at the board's .

Unlike the Oct. 31 session, though, the board didn't make any cuts or additions despite the fact that both Skoglund and Chairman Maria Brown said a stipend for the chemical safety officer wasn't "needed."

That statement came after Skoglund questioned why the district was paying stipends for that position and for a webmaster, as he said those duties "should be in the job descriptions" for a member of the science and computer science departments, respectively.

WHS Principal Bill McGowan recommended keeping the stipends during Wednesday's meeting because he said the tasks go above and beyond classroom and job description expectations.

After this comment, Skoglund said he was "just brining it up for discussion," and the board didn't make any changes to those stipend appropriations, which totaled roughly $9,500.

The bottom line of the proposed budget did decrease, however, since the Oct. 31 meeting, as School Administrative Unit 21 Business Administrator Bill Hickey said the district has found more than $100,000 in electricity and FICA cost savings, among other areas.

This dropped the budget from the Oct. 31 total of $21,689,624 to $21,577,986, making next year's proposed budget $139,000 or 1 percent lower than the current budget, according to Hickey.

The proposed budget is also $225,679 below the default budget. Hickey said the budget's bottom line could also decrease by another $27,650 because the district may not have yet removed that money from the athletic account's coaches and advisers line.

Brown said McGowan had requested an additional $27,650 to that line, which was originally budgeted at $270,000 — the same amount as the current year. She said, though, that McGowan later found it he doesn't need it, and Hickey said the change to restore the line to $270,000 might not have been made.

The budget, as well as draft warrant articles calling for $50,000 for an emergency generator and $40,000 for a three-year HVAC unit replacement plan, will now go to the budget committee. 

The committee is expected to review the information at some point after Thanksgiving.

Prior to the start of Wednesday's 5 p.m. work session, the school board held a two-hour nonpublic session under the RSA related to "hiring" an individual. That session may have related to a , although the ROTC representative who requested that a meeting didn't arrive until roughly 6:50 p.m.

Member Henry Marsh wasn't present Wednesday for the nonpublic session or the budget work session.

The school board's next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 30.