Londonderry board advances bond and budget warrant articles, approves allied-health contract

The Londonderry School District school board voted unanimously Wednesday to send the district's general fund operating budget and related warrant articles to public hearings on Jan. 14, and separately approved moving the proposed bond warrant article that would fund full-day kindergarten and renovations to house the district office at Moose Hill to a public bond hearing the same night.

Why it matters: The bond would fund modular classrooms to start a full-day kindergarten program at Matthew Thornton, North and South elementary schools and pay for renovations to move the district office to Moose Hill. School officials said the proposal reduces capital costs compared with earlier plans, would lower ongoing district office lease expenses and could increase state aid by enrolling additional kindergarten students in full-day programming.

Dan (superintendent, name not specified) told the board the bond package is a scaled-down plan from last year and combines two aims: begin full-day kindergarten and end the district office lease. He presented the project cost as an estimated $7,420,000 for eight modular classrooms and related site work and about $1,630,000 for Moose Hill renovations to accommodate the district office. Dan said those figures were reviewed with the bond bank and that the first-year cost would be primarily interest payments, about $226,000, with an average annual payment afterward of roughly $760,000 assuming an illustrative interest rate in the mid-3% range. He also said the average yearly tax impact would be about $0.12.

Board members and budget committee members pressed for clear, voter-facing materials showing…