Even with a flat-funded budget at $124 million, the Concord School District is expected to deliver a 12.2% property tax increase next year.
A level budget is often the ideal of municipal and school budgeters and their constituents. Under the hood, however, this one deals a heavy blow to local taxpayers and educators alike.
Held-steady operating expenses, increasing less than a quarter of one percent, were achieved by cutting just under 40 staff positions district-wide, many of them teachers. Officials also shaved away millions in equipment and technology purchases and demanded the district central office find a way to get a handle on special education costs.
Even so, the spending plan is estimated to present a $724 annual increase onto the tax bill of a $400,000 home.
“I feel bad on all levels,” Cara Meeker, the board’s vice president, said Tuesday night. “Which says to me we worked hard on all levels to get as good as we can get out of this terrible year.”
Falling external revenue meant the district had to cover more of its expenses with local taxes than in previous years. A significant portion of the shortfall, about $3 million, is the result of decreased funding from the state of New Hampshire, Concord school officials said. Since equalized property values are on the rise in Concord, the district qualifies for less money derived from a portion of the state formula that’s tied to “need.”
Not all of the revenue loss stems from reduced state funding, though: Millions in spiking special education and health insurance expenses partway through the 2025-2026 school year meant the board had to use savings to help patch unexpected budget holes. Special education and insurance costs have only continued to climb, and tax dollars now bear the brunt.
The district is also building a $155 million middle school. On the first of multiple bonds to pay for that project, the board opted to forego paying down the principal this year. Paying just interest on that debt costs almost $3.5 million.
Kim Bleier, president of the teachers’ union and a three-decade veteran history teacher in Concord schools, said the staff cuts included in this budget are the most sweeping she has ever seen.
On one hand, Bleier said in an interview last week, teachers understand the reality of staff shrinkage.
Enrollment remains on the decline. Costs associated with everything from special education to electricity continue to balloon. The state is looking to contain, not expand, the amount of funding it sends to local public school districts, and Concord was hit hard by falling state help this year.
“This is not a crisis of the district’s own making,” she said.
Nevertheless, teachers are “on edge,” Bleier said.
It’s not just people concerned for their jobs, though that’s certainly a worry. More tenured staff, less at risk of being laid off, know that cuts will lead to larger class sizes and fewer hands on deck than they currently have. The high school will see the biggest drop off, losing the equivalent of 14 full-time staff, according to district data.
At the same time, many local teachers, Bleier noted, are Concord residents. They pay local taxes and have kids in local schools. They’ll feel the aftershocks of the new budget on multiple fronts.
Meanwhile, the union is in the midst of negotiating a new contract with the board. Of course the budget looms over those talks, Bleier said: “It’s hard to advocate for what you feel is the right salary and benefits package when the person across the hall from you might be losing their job.”
The process that determines who will be laid off is spelled out in the current collective bargaining agreement. That process began Wednesday morning.
Over two workshops this week, the board dug for cash in the couch cushions, increasing fees for sports around 10%, upping rental rates on district spaces for events and raising preschool tuition by 7%.
Some new staff reductions were introduced, including a handful of permanent substitutes and early retirements or buyouts from more senior educators.
Positions were also added back into the budget, and the final plan approved this week was slightly higher than the budget posted for public discussion a few weeks ago.
Notably, instead of removing an art teacher at both the high school and middle school, board members decided that one will be shared between the two schools. Vocal public testimony urged the board to save those positions.
With a concern for class sizes in the youngest grades, the board also narrowly voted to restore three of the six elementary classroom teachers previously deducted.
Those three teaching positions account for about $357,000 of salaries and benefits. Board President Pamela Walsh, Liz Boucher, Jessica Campbell and Meeker were the minority in a 5-4 vote adding them back in.
“The vast, vast majority of the public input we received was to cut less,” said board member Madeleine Mineau, who voted in favor of and pushed for the restoration. “If folks are unhappy with the tax rate, they need to get a little bit more involved.”
At a hearing last week, Superintendent Tim Herbert looked to make one thing clear: the district can not and is not closing down Second Start Alternative High School.
Second Start first came up in budget talks as a line-item adjustment. District administrators said they would be reducing the number of slots, or half-day student availabilities, booked at the school from nearly 40 to just 12.
Herbert has since clarified how that number isn’t the full picture. Tuition for about ten additional slots are budgeted in a separate line item for special education.
Currently, the district pays upfront for 38 half-day slots at Second Start regardless of whether they’re all used, Herber said. The new plan would be to pay for space at Second Start as-needed, as it builds out its own alternative program at Concord High. In reality, according to figures Herbert presented last week, the district is only planning to pay about $66,000 less in Second Start tuition.
Like districts across the state, Concord doesn’t know yet what the state’s final policy on open enrollment will be or how it might affect the district’s finances.
Because the district is autonomous, city officials don’t review its budget. It also means the board can adjust and tweak its spending plan until October.
Concord isn’t alone in facing teacher layoffs this year.
Coping with their own deficit, Manchester school officials have said they would need to lay off between 42 and 113 people to comply with the Queen City’s cap on tax increases, according to reporting by Manchester Ink Link.
Smaller districts across New Hampshire, especially those where enrollment is falling the fastest, have faced similar pressures of health insurance costs and slashed state funding, struggles that were evident at town meetings this spring.
Meanwhile, longstanding debates in state government about how much state funding should go towards public schools rage on.
Walsh encouraged residents unsatisfied with the district’s revenue reality to “call the governor’s office tomorrow.”
“We have had a lot of tax cuts in the past couple years in the state for out of state corporations and wealthy investors,” she said. “The only tax that almost everybody in the state pays and that hits small businesses the most, and regular working people the most, is the property tax. And that’s the one that all the cost keeps getting shifted onto.”
