BRISTOL — An attempt to end seven weeks of acrimony between the Newfound Area School Board and residents of the seven towns making up the school district succeeded in bringing a calmer and more respectful tone to the conversation over the default budget, but the dispute will not be resolved until at least mid-May.
Archie Auger of Bristol said his goal in explaining why he believes the school board erred by including capital improvement projects that voters have never approved in the default budget was to have the board agree by the end of the meeting to resolve the issue.
School Board Chair Jeff Levesque of Groton proposed delaying any action on the budget until the end of May because of the number of other agenda items that need to be addressed, but Superintendent Stacy Buckley said she may be able to rearrange the agenda so the board can take it up on May 14.
“I think we can do this as adults,” Levesque said at the beginning of the discussion as he laid out tighter rules for taking public comment on the issue of the $712,000 in new spending that was included in the default budget.
Auger reviewed what happened last year, when the school district’s tax cap prevented the school board from including an $800,000 warrant article that would have addressed replacement of a leaking high school roof. Voters have the ability to authorize spending beyond the amount allowed under the cap, and Auger was successful in offering an amendment to the operating budget to add the $800,000 for roof repairs.
Under the terms of the tax cap, the authorized operating budget serves as the starting point for calculating how much the district is allowed to spend in developing the succeeding year’s budget. That allowed the school board to include $712,000 in capital expenditures for building maintenance in its fiscal 2018-19 budget.
In calculating the default budget that would take place if voters turned down the proposed budget, the school board also included the $712,000 in capital expenditures, based on school district attorney Barbara Loughman’s argument that replacement of a roof is part of the ongoing cost of maintaining school district buildings.
Auger read the statute governing towns and school districts that have adopted the Official Ballot Law, RSA 40:13, which states that the default budget is the previous year’s operating budget, “reduced or increased, as the case may be, by debt service, contracts, and other obligations previously incurred or mandated by law, and reduced by one-time expenditures included in the operating budget. … One-time expenditures shall be appropriations not likely to recur in the succeeding budget,….”
He said, “Any responsible person would have to know that $800,000 to repair the high school roof won’t appear in the succeeding budget, and it doesn’t. Other things were substituted.”
The effect, he said, is that the same items appear in both the operating and the default budget, so if voters choose not to fund them in one budget, they still get funded in the other.
“The voters have not had a chance to weigh in. The voters are left out. That’s not democracy,” he said.
Auger asked the school board to invoke the option provided in the law that allows the district to hold a special meeting to set a new operating budget rather than accepting the default budget.
Board member Vincent Paul Migliore of Bridgewater said the danger in holding a special meeting is that people who are angry with the school board might choose to cut out more than the $712,000 and leave the district with too little money to function properly.
Other discussion
Dana Torsey of New Hampton said Loughman’s argument that the roof replacement was just regular maintenance would mean that voters would have no say on other big-ticket repairs.
“Big articles are normally warrant articles,” he said. “You circumvented it. If you stay with that logic, you’ll never have a vote, because it’s in both budgets. No matter what the voters do, you’ll have your $8 to $10 million.”
Bill Gilson of New Hampton suggested that the school board adopt a policy that would allow it to include any maintenance items costing less than $50,000 in the operating budget, while anything $50,000 or more would have to appear in a separate warrant article so residents could vote on the spending.
That led to a discussion of other options, such as simply not spending the $712,000 so it becomes part of the unexpended fund balance and can be used to reduce taxation the following year.
Several people spoke of the need for the school board to re-establish trust so taxpayers will support their budgets in the future.
Loughman offered some personal observations as well as legal opinions to persuade people that holding a special meeting or suing the school district would not serve as good solutions.
She said special meetings tend to attract fewer people, so a small number of people could take actions that run contrary to what the majority of people would support. She also noted the long timeframe for holding a special meeting: between the budget hearing, the posting requirements, the deliberative session, and the ballot session a month later, she said voting would occur in the middle of summer.
As to a lawsuit, as some have threatened, she said that also could take a long time, perhaps delaying the setting of the tax rate which would leave towns in a situation where they would have to borrow operating funds in anticipation of taxes. If the plaintiffs lost and appealed the case to the supreme court, it could take years to arrive at a decision.
Levesque said he was inclined to turn back the $712,000 and wait for another year to propose capital projects.
Board members Sue Cheney of Alexandria and Sharon Klapyk of Danbury expressed concern about accepting the decision of those who voted because more residents of the school district stayed home and did not vote.
“What about the voters who want the CIP?” asked Klapyk. “I do agree with compromising, and we should be cooperating, but what about putting money into our buildings? We shouldn’t compromise on just the people that show up.”
Board member Jason Robert of Hebron called it “an amazing conversation” and said, “We want to make sure the taxpayers are respected. We want to do something to get back in your good graces, and we want to make sure we’re not impacting our students. How do we help resolve the $712,000, and how do we deal with the CIP plan moving forward? We need to do something.”
Codified procedures
Migliore offered a solution to avoid the sorts of confusion that fueled the anger over the default budget. People coming to the meetings to seek answers mistook the board’s refusal to answer questions at that time as intransigence, not knowing that the board’s policy was to allow people to speak, and for the board to discuss the issues they raised at a later time. That explanation is now included on the meeting agenda, and Migliore wanted to have that and other procedural matters written down so new board members could have that knowledge, and the board would not be improvising as it has done lately.
Levesque took umbrage at the suggestion, having abandoned many of the procedures Migliore had put in place when he was serving as school board chair.
“I grew up here, and my father and my grandfather always told me, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’” he said. “I’ve been told I’m not a lawyer and shouldn’t be writing legislation. We have the School Boards Association to draft sample policies, and they have lawyers to make sure the policies are in compliance with state and local law. I appreciate that you’ve spent a lot of time to put this together, but I see things that concern me. I’m not a libertarian, but I know we have a substantial contingent in this district. I really don’t want to open that can of worms with them telling us what we’re doing wrong with rules and regulations. Why would we do such a thing?”
Migliore said having motions put in writing, for example, would avoid confusion, so board members would know exactly what they’re voting for. He cited the example of the food service contract where they had to follow up to make sure the firm was observing the conditions included in the motion that hired the company. “If it was written and adhered to, it wouldn’t have been a problem,” he said.
His motion to have the policy committee take up the matter did not receive a second, although Cheney said she would review his recommendation and might support it at a future meeting.
Migliore said his ultimate goal was to offer a policy to address the issues raised that night about setting a limit on the cost of building maintenance that could be included in the operating budget and requiring that the more expensive items be placed on the warrant for voters to decide.
10 April 2018
Home News