Laconia school leaders present budget that leans on reserves after $1.2M state funding drop

Laconia school officials presented a budget to the Laconia City Council budget hearing that closes a roughly $1.2 million state funding shortfall largely by drawing on reserve accounts, cutting positions and prebuying supplies while keeping the district inside the city’s tax cap.

The district’s business administrator, Diane Clary, told the council that reductions “in state funding for Laconia” — including adequacy, special‑education and building aid — required a mix of cuts and one‑time uses of reserves to avoid direct impacts to students. She said the plan brings “our net budget to within a few dollars of this year, just a 2.6% increase overall.”

Clary and other school leaders said the district faces two primary drivers of the adequacy reduction: a lower count of families completing free‑and‑reduced‑price meal applications since COVID and an increased equalized valuation for the city following recent construction. “The biggest 2 items impacting our funding are free and reduced eligible families and our equalized valuation for the city of Laconia,” Clary said. She added that the district will intensify efforts to increase applications for free and reduced meals but that higher application rates would not restore next year’s lost state funding.

To close…