The Concord Board of Education will hold two public hearings next week on its proposed budget for the 2025-2026 school year. Here’s what you need to know. 

Budget overview

The proposal on the table is for a $111.6 million budget, up roughly $3 million, or about 2.8%, from last year. Even with a dip from district savings accounts to cushion the increase, declining revenue means the proposal is predicted to carry a 4.4% increase to the tax rate. That comes out to 62 cents per $1,000 of assessed value, which would add $248 annually to the tax bill of a $400,000 home.

Most of the increases in the budget come from salaries and benefits, though the plan would also eliminate several positions. Rising debt service are also driving expenses. 

The board is contemplating reductions to what’s currently on the table. The cost to bring a school resource officer to the middle school is included, but the board shot down the same proposal last year. The district is also weighing a plan to take on its own van transportation system to reduce its reliance on pricey contractors. The plan calls for buying 20 new vans, but the board has discussed starting smaller. 

Several things not included in the budget could weigh on deliberations. Namely, two major capital projects – renovations to Memorial Field and construction of a new middle school. City and school officials have expressed a sense of urgency to renovate the athletic facilities on South Fruit Street so that the project does not overlap with middle school construction. The other looming question is the overall cost to rebuild Rundlett with state building aid funding currently absent from Gov. Kelly Ayotte's budget. The school district was hoping to receive as much as $40 million in building aid to reduce the tax impact of the project, which could cost up to $164 million or more. 

School Resource Officer

Middle School Principal Jay Richard’s request to add a school resource officer to Rundlett was rejected by the board last year because they didn’t see enough value in the position that social workers and other non-police staff couldn’t provide. 

This year, he resubmitted the request and has aimed to convince the board that an officer would improve relationships in situations where Concord police are already interacting with students, such as when a student has been caught with a vape or has had an incident happen at home. 

“A fundamental belief of mine is that if kids know that you care about them and you know them personally, they're much more likely to listen to you,” Richard told the board at a March 5 workshop. 

While much of Rundlett social worker Haily Lincoln’s work involves coordinating support for students with counselors, teachers and families, in situations where the legal system comes into play, she is already reaching out to the high school’s SRO with questions, she explained to the board. Whether as part of a wellness check or home visit, she added, situations where Concord Police are being tapped to work with families could benefit from having a single officer who knows and is known by students. 

“A huge part is the connection. If we have to call the PD for whatever reason, I mean they typically have no idea about whatever student that we're dealing with — and a lot of times it’s students that could be in crisis often,” Lincoln said. “When we have an SRO in the building that has that awareness of these students and how they may respond and react, it's better that we have someone that has the knowledge about the student or the background about the family.”

The board, however, had both new and reiterated reservations. 

With intensifying federal immigration enforcement, the board questioned whether having an officer in school would put students at risk or on edge.

“We do have a policy on interacting with, managing people who are undocumented,” said Ben Mitchell, a sergeant who oversees the department's SROs, including those at Merrimack Valley. “We are actually prohibited from just, as a police action, just going out and looking for undocumented children.”

Several police departments in New Hampshire have signed agreements with federal agents to enforce national immigration laws. The Concord Police Department is not one of them. 

“Generally, we don't get involved in immigration laws as the local police department," Mitchell said. “If there's no underlying criminal offense that we're investigating, that person is going to have the same protections as any other person in the school.” 

Board member Sarah Robinson expressed an ongoing critique that the position should be funded by the city police department, not by the district. 

Under the agreement between Concord Police and the district, the district pays 75% of the cost for an officer stationed in school. That comes out to more than $101,000 a year.

“I feel it should be coming out of their budget and not ours,  especially where we’re looking at genuinely splitting hairs to make transportation costs,” Robinson said. 

Vans

Concord, like other districts, spends thousands of dollars per day to transport students where they need to go, whether that’s to Concord Schools from another town where they’ve recently found housing or to a specific educational need elsewhere in the city or region. Much of this happens between places in Concord, but it also includes school placements as far away as  North Chelmsford, Mass. and Rochester. 

To better control those costs, Concord is considering running its own fleet of vans. A challenge would be hiring and retaining enough drivers, but opportunities exist to share the service with neighboring districts, who would help pay to cover the costs. 

The proposal is for 20 vans — which would use about $1 million in trust funds for the initial purchase and about $1 million each year to maintain the service. That’s not cheap, district leaders have acknowledged, but it would be far more controllable and predictable than the fluctuations and constant spikes from outside contractors. 

The board has asked about the possibility of starting smaller — with five or ten vans. 

Staffing changes

To lessen rising costs from employee raises and healthcare, several positions, including six teaching positions, would be eliminated next year. Most of these come at Concord High School and the majority, but not all, would come from retirements or unfilled vacancies. 

Assistant Superintendent John Fabrizio, who oversees special education, has asked the board to add occupational therapy and speech pathology staff to meet the rising need for these services. Currently, the average caseload for these therapists in Concord is nearly 50 students. 

Things to keep in mind

This plan doesn’t include what it would cost for Concord to move forward on Memorial Field or build a new middle school. 

School leaders have begun meeting in committee with the city to discuss the plans to revamp Concord’s athletic complex. According to district calculations presented this week, if the district split the costs with the city for the project’s nearly $30 million price tag, it would add about 23 cents to the district tax rate — a $92 increase on a $400,000 home. There rest would appear on the same tax bill under the city portion. 

At a recent meeting, district officials discussed taking a hard look at what they may have to cut from plans for a new middle school. Building aid to local districts is not currently funded in the state budget plans. More on this to come. 

The board has drafted a new class size policy that would, especially at the elementary level, slightly decrease maximum class sizes. That’s in line with what district leaders believe will produce the best student outcomes, but presents a cost risk. Around a half dozen classrooms would then be at capacity, meaning a single student arrival would trigger an added teaching position and classroom space. 

Hearing details

The first hearing will take place on March 17 at Mill Brook School. The second will be in district offices on March 19. Both are scheduled for 6 p.m. 

The board will hold an additional workshop the week following before it’s slated to pass a budget on March 26. 

 

Catherine McLaughlin can be reached at cmclaughlin@cmonitor.com. You can subscribe to her Concord newsletter The City Beat at concordmonitor.com.