Town Hall
16 School St.
Allenstown, NH
485-4276
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The school tax went going up about one dollar per thousand. The school board had cut the budget below default but the state house failed to deliver enough aid to offset expenses.
Article 1 – School Budget
| Votes: |
YES: |
238 |
NO: |
56 |
PASSED |
Proposed budget: Shall the Allenstown School District vote to raise and appropriate as an operating budget, not including appropriations by special warrant article and other operations voted separately, the amounts set forth on the budget posted with the warrant or as amended by vote of the first session, for the purposes set forth therein, totaling $9,499,224?
Should this article be defeated, the operating budget shall be $9,505,993 which is the same as last year, with certain adjustments required by previous action of the Allenstown School District, or by law, or the governing body may hold one special meeting in accordance with RSA 40:13, X and XVI, to take up the issue of a revised operating budget only.
School Board recommends approval. Budget Committee recommends approval.
Commentary: Last year, the school lobby got their buns in a knot when the school budget was cut by $1 million (10%) at the Deliberative Session. So it became a choice of either the cut budget of $8,780,000 or the default budget of $9,756,468. The higher budget won by a 2 to 1 margin. In hindsight, a cut of a few percent may have survived the election.
This year, the proposed budget is about $256,000 less than the excessively high budget that was approved last year. The problem is the fact that the state and the feds cut back revenue sharing by about $217,000, resulting in a revenue shortfall (AKA a tax increase).
Bottom Line: The proposed budget is slightly less than the default, so vote for the proposed budget. But the Allenstown school system still seems to be too expensive. We might be better off sending our children to Epsom, Chichester, or Deerfield.
Recommendation: Yes
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Article 2 – Transact other business that may legally come before said meeting.
Commentary: There was not much discussion. The next step is the March 10 elections.
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