Somersworth School District makes final $25g in cuts

Jul 14, 2010 — Foster's Daily Democrat

Kyle Stucker

Jul. 14, 2010 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- SOMERSWORTH -- The school district recently identified maintenance contingency funds, waste removal and part of one school's speech teacher salaries and benefits line as the final budget cuts to meet the remaining $25,000 of the city council's $675,000 reduction mandate.

School Administrative Unit 56 had made about $650,000 of cuts to its $24.1 million fiscal year 2011 budget on June 22, including eliminating a Spanish teacher, a custodian, a special education case manager, as well as funding to boys ice hockey, lacrosse and all nonvarsity sports at the high school level, although the district requested more time from the school board for the remaining amount.

The district sent a copy of the final $25,000 of cuts to city council on July 7, a week after the final school budget bottom line of $23,379,295 was submitted to the state.

As a part of the final cuts, each school's maintenance contingency took a significant hit; Hilltop Elementary School's contingency was reduced by $2,779, Maple Wood Elementary School's by $1,000, the middle school's by $2,000, the high school's by $1,000, and the Career Technical Center's by $2,000.

SAU 56 Business Administrator Marie D'Agostino said Monday the funds are in the budget for "emergency purposes" and for any "unforeseen issues that may happen." She said the funds were chosen because the school board instructed the administration to look at the funds.

School Board Chairman Jerry Perkins said Monday the funds were chosen because they have a lesser "educational impact" than personnel cuts.

"When it comes down to it you have to cut maintenance to maintain the educational stuff," said Perkins.

He said maintenance "always seems to be the one that takes the hit," though, which could pose a problem. For instance, he said, if one of the school's HVAC units fails, the district would have to take the funds out of another line, creating a budget shortage.

The HVAC units were also due for replacement this year, although the capital improvement plan budget line was cut significantly on June 22 to meet city council's mandate.

D'Agostino said each school still has money set aside, though, because the district "just took a portion" out of each contingency fund. She said still it's too soon, though, to tell if the schools will be able to make it through next year with reduced contingency money.

"We don't know," she said. "We'll just have to wait and see."

The speech teacher salary and benefits cut comes out of the Maple Wood budget, and D'Agostino said this reduction was possible because a teacher resigned and the "personnel replacement" hired by SAU 56 is on a different level of the pay scale. This personnel change represents a savings of $9,345 in salary and $1,521 in benefits.

SAU 56 was able to cut $5,000 from waste removal because the district recently signed a new, less-expensive agreement with Waste Management, D'Agostino said. She said the district budgeted a higher total in their initial proposal based on the rates in their old contract, and the $5,000 represents the total savings from their estimate.

The final cuts amount to $24,645, although because of previous cuts, the total reductions equal exactly $675,000, according to line items listed in the district's adopted budget.

The total appropriated amount for the city's fiscal year 2011 budget is $41,129,821 million. The next year's tax rate is set at about $27.54 per $1,000 of valuation, which is $1.73 higher than fiscal year 2010.

Newstex ID: KRTB-1268-46970784