BRISTOL — Lawmakers who earlier this year amended RSA 40:13, the Official Ballot Law, sought to bring clarity to the provision of that law that has caused the most confusion through the years: the default budget. They tried to do a better job of defining how the governing body — the municipal or school board that determines the default budget — makes the calculations and explains that method to the legislative body — the voters.
School Administrative Unit 4 Business Administrator Michael Limanni, however, says the tinkering still leaves a lot of area for interpretation. In suggesting the default budget that the Newfound Area School Board should consider for the 2019-20 fiscal year, Limanni said the school administration did its best to straddle the line between what was reasonable and what was allowed by the new language.
Central to the issue was the revised law’s use of the word “authorized” when referring to the previous year’s budget. Limanni said that the top lawyers in the field have concluded that, when voters reject a proposed budget — as Newfound voters did this year — and a default budget goes into effect, it is not an “authorized” budget and, therefore, in calculating the next year’s operating budget, officials have to go back to the last budget that voters did approve to determine what qualifies as “contracts previously approved” and how to calculate what the new figure should be.
Vincent Paul Migliore, the school board member from Bridgewater who also serves in the state legislature, has a different understanding of what the language means. He argued that, when voters rejected the proposed budget, they were, in effect, authorizing the implementation of the default budget. Therefore, in his view, it is the most recent budget that serves as the base for calculating next year’s default budget.
There was also disagreement about what constitutes a contract. Migliore felt the language was very clear: “‘Contracts’ as used in this subdivision means contracts previously approved, in the amount so approved, by the legislative body in either the operating budget authorized for the previous year or in a separate warrant article for a previous year.” He therefore could not understand why Limanni was proposing a $120,000 increase in health insurance.
Limanni explained that the teachers’ contract referred to a “structure” for calculating health insurance costs. The specific amount is affected by the number of teachers and whether they are taking an individual or family plan. He said that, if they calculated the amount according to the staffing level and projected increase from the last approved budget, it would result in a $400,000 increase. That did not make sense, he said, and they used the lower figure, based on the current staff numbers and currently projected health insurance rates.
“The school board has the right to say no,” Limanni said, “but we feel [the numbers] are legally defendable.”
Migliore said the cost of healthcare was part of the discussion when the legislature was debating the bill, and “that contract amount can only be what was previously approved.” By increasing the number, he said, “We run the risk of having it come out of another line item.”
Other board members agreed with Limanni that the prposed numbers were valid.
“I think I can defend this,” said Chair Jeff Levesque of Groton. “It’s not taking advantage of anybody.”
In the end, they agreed to set the default budget at $22,200,457, a number that is higher than the tax cap budget. Suzanne Cheney of Alexandria, Heidi Milbrand of Bristol, and Levesque voted in favor of the motion; Migliore was the only vote in opposition. Jason Robert of Hebron and Christine Davol of New Hampton were absent, and Danbury has a vacancy on the board.
While the school board developed a budget recommendation that falls within the tax cap (with Migliore voting against it), the budget that will go before the voters in March is the one being developed by the Newfound Area School District Budget Committee, which is working separately to put together a spending proposal.
