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Votes at a glance: finance committee actions on budgets, contracts, invoices and transportation
Summary
The finance committee recorded unanimous voice approvals on a series of routine and substantive items: minutes, two donations, fiscal reports and warrants, the FY26 budgets (forwarded to the full board), transportation procurement changes, and an ATU MOA.
The Manchester School District Finance Committee recorded the following actions and votes during the meeting. Where the transcript recorded a named mover or seconder, that information is shown; most roll-call results were taken by voice and recorded as "the ayes have it."
- Minutes: Committee approved the minutes by voice vote (motion moved and seconded; outcome: approved).
- Gifts and donations: The committee approved two donations presented by Polly Golden: $50,000 from the New Hampshire Statewide Family Engagement Center to support family-engagement work across all 20 schools, and an anonymous $10,000 donation to support the Dallas Brass Band concert and Memorial High School band students. The motion to approve donations was moved and seconded and passed by voice vote.
- Financial reports and budgets: The committee approved the monthly financial reports presented by Karen DeFrancis, including general-fund expenditures, grant reports and an ESSER final-spending summary. The committee voted to forward the tax-cap–compliant FY26 general fund budget, the school food and nutrition budget, and the capital-improvement budget to the full Board of School Committee for final action (motion moved; seconded by Gwen Potter; outcome: approved by voice vote).
- City services invoices and manifest: The committee approved the city services invoices totaling $2,311,066.94 and the warrant/manifest for the month (accounts payable plus January payroll) totaling $20,798,596.99; both motions passed by voice vote.
- Endowment funds / scholarships: The committee accepted the annual scholarship spending request from the trustees of the trust funds totaling $145,500 (motion moved and seconded; outcome: approved by voice vote).
- Specialized transportation procurement: The committee approved moving forward with the recommended specialized-transportation vendor proposals (Safe Wheels/Mr. Sees and Anewcom's Transportation) and directed staff to finalize contracts; the committee recorded the projected fiscal effect (a projected reduction in specialized-transportation costs between $2,025,373 and $4,613,126, or 21% to 51%, depending on routing assumptions). Motion passed by voice vote.
- ATU MOA: The committee approved a tentative memorandum of agreement with the Amalgamated Transit Union to create School Bus Operator 1 (CDL) and School Bus Operator 2 (non-CDL) classifications, set the operator-2 wage at 85% of operator-1, and define assignment and guarantee rules. Motion moved and seconded; outcome: approved by voice vote.
Ending: Most actions were approved by unanimous voice vote in committee and will be reflected in the full Board record where required. Staff will return finalized vendor contracts and any adjusted contract language to the committee/board for signature and implementation.
