Budget committee debates spreadsheets, maintenance cuts and adopts school board budget
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Summary
After hours of line-by-line discussion — including a failed motion to remove $1 million from maintenance and a dispute over which historic data to use — the Merrimack School District Budget Committee voted to adopt the administration and school board's operating budget recommendation for the ballot.
The budget committee's work session devolved into an extended debate over data sources, how to treat one-time warrant-article spending and which numbers to use when projecting future costs, before members voted to adopt the administration and school board recommendation as the committee's recommended operating budget.
Chair introduced a freshly circulated packet of warrant articles and Shannon (Speaker 24) moved to defer reading and voting on them until next week's work session; Marie (Speaker 28) seconded and the committee voted to defer so members could review the materials in advance.
Committee members repeatedly disagreed about the correct analytic approach. Rachel (Speaker 29) argued that historical expenditure columns on the working spreadsheet were not normalized and successfully moved to hide a column that showed the requested amount as a percentage of prior-year spending, calling the column "misrepresentative" for the current-year analysis. Anthony (Speaker 4) pressed Georgetown University and district-specific charts showing spending versus inflation and proposed a package of targeted reductions that would lower the administration request while avoiding program eliminations.
A specific contest centered on maintenance: Anthony proposed removing $1,000,000 from the maintenance total on the theory that recent one-time roof warrant-article spending had been folded into recurring lines; proponents said that trimming $1,000,000 would still leave maintenance above last year's operating costs, while opponents warned that contract obligations, unfilled positions, and legally required services made sweeping cuts risky. That motion failed (4 in favor, 8 opposed, 1 abstention as recorded).
Several members urged the committee to offer voters a meaningful alternative number on the ballot; others argued it is the committee's duty to present a careful recommendation that balances student needs and taxpayer burdens. Speaker 34 moved that the committee adopt the full administration/school board recommendation; after discussion the motion passed and the chair announced that the recommended operating budget would proceed to public hearing and the deliberative session.
Committee members also recorded multiple procedural points for future meetings: vetting any committee-compiled spreadsheets with administration before using them as the basis for motions; clearly labeling one-time warrant-article impacts in summary tables; and preparing department-level justifications for high-growth line items such as health insurance, contracted services and special-education tuition.
The committee closed by setting Feb. 11 as the next meeting and public hearing date to review warrant articles; members and residents were urged to bring additional questions and to contact state legislators about larger funding issues.