Potentially $100,000 More for School Busing?

Dateline: Jan. 28, 2021

On January 14th, the School Board held a public hearing in the acoustically challenged ARD school gym. The topic was "a proposed bond issue in the amount of up to $12,999,824 for the construction of a new school."

Previous reports posed several questions (Bond Proposal for New School) and a followup report documented answers to those questions (Bond Proposal for New School, Part 2).

New information has been uncovered about question #8 on busing costs.

Q. Will the new location require more school busing?

A. Yes. Just about all the students in town would have to be bussed to Dodge Rd.

$100,000 More? A reliable source with a great deal of experience with school budgets estimated that the tentative location at River Road and Dodge Road would increase the busing costs by over $100,000 per year. If this is not correct, then it would be helpful if the school board could calculate for us what the new busing costs would be. In the current proposed school budget, line 645 shows the total proposed transportation costs for both AES and ARD as $188,592.00. The Special Ed busing costs are a whopping $282,002.00.

Everyone to Ride the Bus. The guideline is that all children east of Route 3 ride a bus because they do not want them to have to cross Route 3 and all that traffic. This includes children along Route 28, River Rd., Granite St., and the Deerfield Rd. region. Because the new school location is a good two miles from the downtown region, all the downtown children (the west side of Route 3) will have to ride a bus. Parents may drop off and pick up their children, but that will not lower the busing costs.

The SAU and the Bus Contracts. The SAU folks negotiate the bus contracts for Allenstown, Pembroke, Epsom, and Deerfield so we probably have no say as to the bus company or the cost of the contract for Allenstown.

Raise and Appropriate $32.5 Million Dollars.
Another question is hidden in the controversial first school warrant article. It asks residents "to raise and appropriate the sum of $32.5 million" for the new school. It was not clear as to where, when, and how do we get hold of $32.5 million – before or after the state grant – and what effect will that have on the school tax rate for 2021?

What You Can Do

Attend the January 30 Deliberative Smackdown Session and propose whatever budget changes you might come up with.