Strafford News

The School Board adopted the School Department’s fiscal year 2024 budget at its meeting Monday.

In a 5-2 vote, the board approved a bottom-line budget of $85,141,068, a 1.2% increase from the current FY2023 budget. The budget calls for $52,971,017 to be raised by local property tax, exceeding the estimated tax cap calculation by $1,125,663. The tax-supported operating budget, including debt service and revenue from the statewide education tax of $7,120,667, increased by 6.26% to $78,874,163. School Board Chair Carolyn Mebert and School Board member Michelle Clancy were the two dissenting votes.

The budget will be included in the City Manager’s city-wide budget that will be presented to the City Council next month. A public hearing on the school portion of the budget will be held during the Council’s budget deliberations in March.

Superintendent William Harbron and Business Administrator Michael Limanni said the budget includes a cost-neutral staffing plan to address lower enrollments at the elementary and middle school levels while expanding educational opportunities for high school and career technical center students. The staffing plan also includes providing student and staffing support services at all three levels.

The adopted budget would add team leader stipends for the elementary schools to bridge the gap in the school improvement plan, helping to ensure that decisions on teams align with the district’s and school’s mission, vision, and strategic plan, Harbron said. The middle school would add an instructional coach to provide instructional professional development directly to the classroom to help predict and get ahead of issues and introduce new and supportive instructional materials. The high school adds a social studies teacher and brings the sports medicine and building trades instructors to full-time to address waiting lists in both growing programs.

The budget would also add an additional school psychologist, two special education teachers, three social workers, and a floating English to speakers of other languages (ESOL) paraeducator to provide students with additional supports. Some of the cost items driving the budget increase include health insurance premiums, expected to increase by 14.3%; special education costs, estimated to rise by 21.27%, with an estimated $2,216,742 in non-wage obligations.

Limanni said he will continue refining the budget as more definitive numbers become available in the coming weeks. The School Department is also negotiating contracts with four of its unions and expects additional budget discussions and revisions. Documents detailing the FY2024 budget summary and significant cost items are posted to the FY2024 Budget Revealed webpage, along with other budget documents and videos of budget meetings and workshops.

The School Board plans to continue its School Board its budget discussions at upcoming workshops to help further refine its budget.

For more information, contact the School Department at 603- 516-6800

Original source can be found here.